carta
b43-fwcutter(1)

b43-fwcutter1

Utility for extracting broadcom 43xx firmware

Usage

b43-fwcutter [OPTION] [DRIVER]

Overview

b43-fwcutter can extract the firmware for your Broadcom 43xx hardware from different closed source drivers. The b43 driver depends on these firmware files and can't work without them.

Currently b43-fwcutter supports Apple MacOS X, Microsoft Windows and Linux drivers, but keep in mind that b43-fwcutter doesn't support all driver versions.

Example:

b43-fwcutter bcmwl5.sys

to cut the firmware out of bcmwl5.sys

Options

-l|--list

List supported driver versions

-i|--identify

Only identify the driver file (don't extract)

-w|--target-dir DIR

Extract and write firmware to DIR

-a|--alt-iv

Extract alternative initvals (only 3.10.x.x)

-v|--version

Print b43-fwcutter version

-h|--help

Print help information

History

  • Arch Linux 2026-11-01 to Debian 8 (Jessie): the text shown here
  • Debian 7 (Wheezy)
  • Debian 6.0 (Squeeze) to Debian 4.0 (Etch)

Authors

b43 development team, http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/b43

From b43-fwcutter 021-1 in Arch Linux 2026-11-01. Parsed by carta from the page's man source.