RPI Zero 2 W: Wifi not detected (Alpine 3.15.0, aarch64)

Struggling with the same thing. I did find the following information posted by Jeff Geerling [0]:

"the actual chip used here is the SYN43436, made by Synaptics. It's very close to the BCM43438 used in the 3 model B and Zero W, but it does require dedicated firmware [1]"

[0] "Look inside the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W and the RP3A0-AU", Jeff Geerling, October 28, 2021, https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2021/look-inside-raspberry-pi-zero-2-w-and-rp3a0-au

[1] https://github.com/raspberrypi/linux/commit/c52581ffa49b9c0e5de3349436c283fe20128073#diff-ffce630590e253b5f402e964a1085c5709e56a2ba5e060579fe68cfd87988fe7

I managed to get this working by copying the files from this repository to the /lib/firmware/brcm directory:

https://github.com/bsdkurt/brcm-supplemental

They are renamed files from the official Raspberry Pi repository for non-free firmware:

Source Location: https://github.com/RPi-Distro/firmware-nonfree/tree/master/brcm

  Renamed to be board specific and set ccode=X2:
    brcmfmac43436-sdio.raspberrypi,model-zero-2-w.bin
    brcmfmac43436-sdio.raspberrypi,model-zero-2-w.clm_blob
    brcmfmac43436-sdio.raspberrypi,model-zero-2-w.txt

I used the firmware from the bullseye branch but wifi is indeed working now.

(I need to figure out how to add this firmware to the modloop file, but this is progress. Thanks!)

btw, the ccode=X2 may cause you to be out of compliance with wireless regulations, depending on your region

You may want to add-in all brcmfmac43436* files from RPi-Distro/firmware-nonfree 20210315-3+rpt4 release into Alpine linux-firmware package, pretty much the same way it is done for custom Bluetooth firmware .hcd files.

It certainly looks ugly, but as Synaptics does not seem to push its 43436 derivative firmware upstream (see note), that's probably the way forward...
@ncopa @mps may have other thoughts?

Not sure what's the status but WiFi worked without any issue for me using alpine-rpi-3.15.0-aarch64.tar.gz. After that I did update to edge but since I upgraded using WiFi, it must have worked already with 3.15.0.

[    0.000000] Linux version 5.15.4-0-rpi (buildozer@build-3-15-aarch64) (gcc (Alpine 10.3.1_git20211027) 10.3.1 20211027, GN
U ld (GNU Binutils) 2.37) #1-Alpine SMP PREEMPT Mon Nov 22 09:13:17 UTC 2021
...
[   22.506134] cfg80211: Loading compiled-in X.509 certificates for regulatory database
[   22.769126] cfg80211: Loaded X.509 cert 'sforshee: 00b28ddf47aef9cea7'
[   22.917199] brcmfmac: brcmf_fw_alloc_request: using brcm/brcmfmac43436s-sdio for chip BCM43430/1
[   22.917689] usbcore: registered new interface driver brcmfmac
[   22.921911] brcmfmac mmc1:0001:1: Direct firmware load for brcm/brcmfmac43436s-sdio.raspberrypi,model-zero-2-w.bin failed with error -2
[   22.922421] brcmfmac mmc1:0001:1: Direct firmware load for brcm/brcmfmac43436s-sdio.bin failed with error -2
[   22.922470] brcmfmac: brcmf_fw_alloc_request: using brcm/brcmfmac43430-sdio for chip BCM43430/1
[   22.922850] brcmfmac mmc1:0001:1: Direct firmware load for brcm/brcmfmac43430-sdio.raspberrypi,model-zero-2-w.bin failed with error -2
[   23.269088] brcmfmac: brcmf_fw_alloc_request: using brcm/brcmfmac43430-sdio for chip BCM43430/1
[   23.271155] brcmfmac: brcmf_fw_alloc_request: using brcm/brcmfmac43430-sdio for chip BCM43430/1
[   23.276061] Bluetooth: hci0: BCM43438A1 37.4MHz Raspberry Pi 3-0141
[   23.276107] Bluetooth: hci0: BCM43430A1 (001.002.009) build 0508
[   23.280146] brcmfmac: brcmf_c_preinit_dcmds: Firmware: BCM43430/1 wl0: Mar 30 2021 01:12:21 version 7.45.98.118 (7d96287 CY) FWID 01-32059766
[   25.456421] NET: Registered PF_PACKET protocol family
[   25.668680] NET: Registered PF_INET6 protocol family
[   25.671257] Segment Routing with IPv6
[   25.671324] In-situ OAM (IOAM) with IPv6
[   25.712509] tun: Universal TUN/TAP device driver, 1.6
[   27.505755] brcmfmac: brcmf_cfg80211_set_power_mgmt: power save enabled
[   28.888637] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): wlan0: link becomes ready
[   35.079836] brcmfmac: brcmf_cfg80211_set_power_mgmt: power save disabled

Bluetooth also worked just like with original Zero W.

For what it's worth I had to make it bootable by first adding this to config.txt as there wasn't block for Zero 2 W.

[pi02]
kernel=boot/vmlinuz-rpi
initramfs boot/initramfs-rpi

Otherwise there was no issues at all with using Zero 2 W on Alpine.

I created !31953 (merged) for the config.txt change.

I tested alpine-rpi-3.15.0-armhf.tar.gz too and it also works after my config.txt change in !31953 (merged) . Not sure what problem you have with WiFi - are there different revisions of Zero 2 W ? Do note that Zero 2 W only has 2.4 GHz WiFi, not 5 GHz.

I think there are different revisions, yes.

Compare the two logs:

[   14.720037] brcmfmac: brcmf_fw_alloc_request: using brcm/brcmfmac43436-sdio for chip BCM43430/2
[   14.720570] usbcore: registered new interface driver brcmfmac
[   14.725089] brcmfmac mmc1:0001:1: Direct firmware load for brcm/brcmfmac43436-sdio.raspberrypi,model-zero-2-w.bin failed with error -2
[   14.725566] brcmfmac mmc1:0001:1: Direct firmware load for brcm/brcmfmac43436-sdio.bin failed with error -2
[   14.725639] brcmfmac: brcmf_fw_alloc_request: using brcm/brcmfmac43430b0-sdio for chip BCM43430/2
[   14.726063] brcmfmac mmc1:0001:1: Direct firmware load for brcm/brcmfmac43430b0-sdio.raspberrypi,model-zero-2-w.bin failed with error -2
[   14.726447] brcmfmac mmc1:0001:1: Direct firmware load for brcm/brcmfmac43430b0-sdio.bin failed with error -2

vs

[   22.917199] brcmfmac: brcmf_fw_alloc_request: using brcm/brcmfmac43436s-sdio for chip BCM43430/1
[   22.917689] usbcore: registered new interface driver brcmfmac
[   22.921911] brcmfmac mmc1:0001:1: Direct firmware load for brcm/brcmfmac43436s-sdio.raspberrypi,model-zero-2-w.bin failed with error -2
[   22.922421] brcmfmac mmc1:0001:1: Direct firmware load for brcm/brcmfmac43436s-sdio.bin failed with error -2
[   22.922470] brcmfmac: brcmf_fw_alloc_request: using brcm/brcmfmac43430-sdio for chip BCM43430/1
[   22.922850] brcmfmac mmc1:0001:1: Direct firmware load for brcm/brcmfmac43430-sdio.raspberrypi,model-zero-2-w.bin failed with error -2
[   23.269088] brcmfmac: brcmf_fw_alloc_request: using brcm/brcmfmac43430-sdio for chip BCM43430/1
[   23.271155] brcmfmac: brcmf_fw_alloc_request: using brcm/brcmfmac43430-sdio for chip BCM43430/1

There definitely seem to be differences between brcmfmac43436 and brcmfmac43436s.

@inklesspen Please confirm if you used alpine-rpi-3.15.0-aarch64.tar.gz with just config updated to use same kernel/initrd as 3B+?

No, I absolutely did not. As I said upthread, I had to build my own image to include the firmware, which is how I discovered #13408 (closed).

Maybe you can try as I did? Do you get the same dmesg as me? Very easy with 3.15.0.

...

On Sun 13. Mar 2022 at 15.15 Rose Davidson (@inklesspen) < gitlab@alpinelinux.org> wrote:

Rose Davidson https://gitlab.alpinelinux.org/inklesspen commented #13302 (comment 221977):

No, I absolutely did not. As I said upthread, I had to build my own image to include the firmware https://github.com/RPi-Distro/firmware-nonfree/tree/bullseye/debian/config/brcm80211/brcm, which is how I discovered #13408 (closed) #13408 (closed).

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitLab #13302 (comment 221977).

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-- Joonas Kuorilehto

Next time I have a spare Zero2W I'm not already using for a project, I'll give it a try.

Anyway, I already posted my dmesg in the original ticket at the top of this page, so you can find it there.

Yes, there are different revisions. @joneskoo has a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W with a different WiFi chipset than my Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W has, for example.

See https://github.com/gokrazy/gokrazy/issues/96#issuecomment-1073227371 for more details.

@joneskoo I am receiving a spare microsd today, so if you need me to log dmesg again, please advise which image you want me to use.

@inklesspen For Zero 2 W, I used 3.15 - as I understand the latest https://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.15/releases/aarch64/alpine-rpi-3.15.1-aarch64.tar.gz is equivalent.

The steps to use it: Edit config.txt as per !31953 (diffs) - add section

[pi02]
kernel=boot/vmlinuz-rpi
initramfs boot/initramfs-rpi

For me this was sufficient to get working WiFi via normal Alpine setup.

@stapelberg Do you have other suggestions besides dmesg to identify the hardware?

Oh yes, that's what I did to get the dmesg in the original ticket. (I subsequently built a custom image in order to get the firmware to actually work.)

I'll do it again today just to be sure.

@stapelberg Do you have other suggestions besides dmesg to identify the hardware?

Unfortunately not, no :-/

As a workaround (until missing firmware files are added into linux-firmware package & default releases modloop) if you are in diskless mode and don't want to rebuild modloop with update-kernel to include missing firmware files, you could add a persistent storage overlayfs with a lower dir in /lib/firmware/brcm which would contain the missing brcmfmac43436* files.

I have Machine model: Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W Rev 1.0.

On Alpine Linux 3.15.1 I get brcmfmac43436s-sdio, and in gokrazy brcmfmac43430-sdio.

gokrazy

[   38.584804] brcmfmac: brcmf_fw_alloc_request: using brcm/brcmfmac43430-sdio for chip BCM43430/1
[   38.594067] brcmfmac mmc1:0001:1: Direct firmware load for brcm/brcmfmac43430-sdio.raspberrypi,model-zero-2-w.bin failed with error -2
[   38.915752] brcmfmac mmc1:0001:1: Direct firmware load for brcm/brcmfmac43430-sdio.raspberrypi,model-zero-2-w.txt failed with error -2
[   39.120984] brcmfmac: brcmf_fw_alloc_request: using brcm/brcmfmac43430-sdio for chip BCM43430/1
[   39.148509] brcmfmac: brcmf_c_preinit_dcmds: Firmware: BCM43430/1 wl0: Mar 30 2021 01:12:21 version 7.45.98.118 (7d96287 CY) FWID 01-32059766

alpine 3.15.1 aarch64 rpi

(edit config.txt to add pi02, setup-interfaces; no other action needed).

localhost:"# dmesg|grep brcm
15.148790] brcmfmac: brcm_fw_alloc_request: using brcm/brcmfmac43436s-sdio for chip BCM43430/1
15.1492621 usbcore: registered new interface driver brcmfmac
15.1562461 brcmfmac mmc1:0001:1 : Direct firmware load for brcm/brcmfmac43436s-sdio.raspberrypi,nodel-zero-2-u.bin failed with error -2
15.1569321 brcmfmac mmc1:0001:1 : Direct firmuare load for brcm/brcmfmac43436s-sdio.bin failed with error -2
15.1569861 brcmfmac: bromf_fu_al loc_request: using bren/bronfnac43430-sdio for chip BOM43430/1
15.496738] brcmfmac: bremf _fu alloc request: using brcm/bremfmac43430-sdio for chip BCM43430/1
15.5053411 brcmfmac: bremf_c preinit_dends: Firnuare: BCM43430/1 wl0: Mar 30 2021 01:12:21 version 7.45.98.118 (7496287 CY) FUID 01-32059766
37.5339341 brcmfmac: bromf_cfg80211 _set pouer_mgmt: pover save enabled

(apologies for typos due to OCR from photo here)

In both WiFi is working.

RPI Zero 2 W: Wifi not detected (Alpine 3.15.0, aarch64)

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