Confiiguring Wifi on Apple TV

The Apple TV is from 2007. 802.11a/b/g/n is all you’ll likely get.

Sam

Old hardware for sure … makes it all the more fun too get the “impossible” to work :slight_smile:

In fact it appears wlan0: Broadcom BCM4328 802.11 Hybrid Wireless Controller 6.30.223.271 (r587334) dual band driver is up and working on another ATV1 linux distro (OpenELEC 6.0.0). This driver allows the 5ghz (N) band to work out of the box with Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4321 802.11a/b/g/n (rev 05).
Note: It appears to me that BCM4328 software driver is used for BCM4321 hardware.

OSMC for sure is the nicer distribution and given time I´m sure somebody smarter than me can make it work! :slight_smile:
OSMC 2.4Ghz works OK with “b43” driver … it wil list access points in but will not connect on 5Ghz (N) band. Maybe somebody can use the info below (captured from openelec) and advise on how to tweak drivers to get full dual band 2.4Ghz + 5Ghz (N) functionality on OSMC ?

OpenELEC111:~ # lspci -k
02:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4321 802.11a/b/g/n (rev 05)
Subsystem: Apple Inc. BCM4321 802.11a/b/g/n (AirPort Extreme)
Kernel driver in use: wl
Kernel modules: wl
OpenELEC111:~ # dmesg | grep 802
[ 4.555512] cfg80211: Calling CRDA to update world regulatory domain
[ 4.555534] cfg80211: World regulatory domain updated:
[ 4.555537] cfg80211: DFS Master region: unset
[ 4.555540] cfg80211: (start_freq - end_freq @ bandwidth), (max_antenna_gain, max_eirp), (dfs_cac_time)
[ 4.555546] cfg80211: (2402000 KHz - 2472000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (N/A, 2000 mBm), (N/A)
[ 4.555551] cfg80211: (2457000 KHz - 2482000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (N/A, 2000 mBm), (N/A)
[ 4.555556] cfg80211: (2474000 KHz - 2494000 KHz @ 20000 KHz), (N/A, 2000 mBm), (N/A)
[ 4.555561] cfg80211: (5170000 KHz - 5250000 KHz @ 80000 KHz, 160000 KHz AUTO), (N/A, 2000 mBm), (N/A)
[ 4.555567] cfg80211: (5250000 KHz - 5330000 KHz @ 80000 KHz, 160000 KHz AUTO), (N/A, 2000 mBm), (0 s)
[ 4.555572] cfg80211: (5490000 KHz - 5730000 KHz @ 160000 KHz), (N/A, 2000 mBm), (0 s)
[ 4.555577] cfg80211: (5735000 KHz - 5835000 KHz @ 80000 KHz), (N/A, 2000 mBm), (N/A)
[ 4.555582] cfg80211: (57240000 KHz - 63720000 KHz @ 2160000 KHz), (N/A, 0 mBm), (N/A)
[ 6.529275] 8021q: 802.1Q VLAN Support v1.8
[ 6.919633] wlan0: Broadcom BCM4328 802.11 Hybrid Wireless Controller 6.30.223.271 (r587334)
OpenELEC111:~ # modinfo /lib/modules/4.1.12/bcm_sta/wl.ko
filename: /lib/modules/4.1.12/bcm_sta/wl.ko
license: MIXED/Proprietary
alias: pci:vdsvsdbc02sc80i*
depends:
vermagic: 4.1.12 mod_unload PENTIUMM

OpenELEC111:~ # connmanctl scan wifi
Scan completed for wifi
OpenELEC111:~ # connmanctl services
*AR Wired ethernet_aaa_cable
*A MyWifi_5ghz wifi_bbb_managed_psk
MyWifi_2ghz wifi_ccc_managed_psk
OpenELEC111:~ # connmanctl connect wifi_bbb_managed_psk
Connected wifi_bbb_managed_psk
OpenELEC111:~ # cat /proc/net/wireless
Inter-| sta-| Quality | Discarded packets | Missed | WE
face | tus | link level noise | nwid crypt frag retry misc | beacon | 22
wlan0: 0000 48. -62. -256 0 0 0 0 0 0

Cheers :slightly_smiling:

You need the proprietary broadcomsta driver to support 2.4/5ghz at up to 270mbs with the built-in wifi card. Works fine on Windows and OSX. Works fine with Kernel 3.8 on Linux. I never got it working stable with Kernel 4.x. Have no idea why.

I can recommend an usb wifi stick with the rt5372 chipset. 270mbs on 2.4ghz , fast and stable. Works out of the box.

On the other hand, I can’t recommend the wireless usb stick from the OSMC store based on mt7601. It’s only 150mbs, but most importantly the kernel driver sucks so incredibly hard. Unstable, crappy range, crappy speeds. Will probably lock up the atv when you least expect it.

The hardware itself works fine on Windows 8+ with excellent speeds, and is plug and play on that platform.

brcfm[f/s]mac was meant to be the almighty successor.

Yeah, that sucked for a couple of weeks. We fixed that quickly. MT7601 behaves nicely in OSMC now :slightly_smiling:. I believe it should be fine on aTV, a user even reports as such: https://store.osmc.tv/product/802-11n-wifi-dongle/#reviews. We are also introducing an AC adapter in a couple of weeks with good tethering support

Sam

I’ll take your for word for it. Did you modify the driver? I’m a bit skeptical (as the performance was really lousy), but maybe the few commits to the driver between kernel 4.2 and 4.3 did the trick, and I haven’t gone beyond 4.2.

Did not have to do much in all honesty. Remove power savings calls and use an out of tree driver, as in tree ones can lag

I had great success with the old vendorbased driver, worked like a champ, but would suddenly throttle down to 0mbs for no reason.
It would not work I properly with 4.x kernels, so I got hold of an rt5273 based stick instead.

If you somehow managed to patch the vendordriver to work on newer kernels and removed the powersaving calls and got rid of the throttling, then it should be OK.

Its a Problem i guess. I dont need a higher resolution, but i would enjoy wlan. Now we have 11:40 pm. I dont see why not to include a few kilobytes more into the installation package to keep existing hardware usable. I hope nobody gets offended its not meant that way. Ciao Anton

Ciao icon,

iam not so fit. Can you explain to me in Babylenguage how i can use the build in Wifi Card of the Appletv with the Osmc.

Best Anton

True, but like you point out Tebogo “is new”. And like he i am new too and unfortunally i dont find a explaination that i am able to follow. sure its my fault but maybe someone can sum up the conclusion i a way that rookies can fallow.
¿Please?