Broadcom BCM4301 and early BCM4306 legacy 802.11b/g Wi-Fi
Support for the oldest Broadcom 43xx wireless chips, including the BCM4301, BCM4303, and the rev 2 variant of the BCM4306. These were 802.11b and early 802.11b/g mini-PCI and CardBus Wi-Fi cards built into laptops and home routers in the early 2000s, with the last widely available products shipping around 2006. Newer Broadcom SoftMAC chips are handled by the separate b43 driver.
recommendation
Worth keeping but documenting as a niche legacy driver. The hardware has not been sold new for nearly two decades and most surviving deployments are residual older laptops, but upstream still carries it, no other in-tree driver covers these exact chips, and it continues to receive routine treewide maintenance through 2025 and 2026. There is no active push to remove it, so it should remain available for the dwindling pool of users still running this hardware.
repository signals
sources
- cateee.net
LKDDb identifies b43legacy as support for BCM4301, BCM4303, and early BCM4306 v2-era Broadcom 43xx legacy devices, and shows it is still present in current kernel series.
- wireless.docs.kernel.org
Linux Wireless documentation says b43legacy is for BCM4301 and early BCM4306 versions, while newer supported Broadcom hardware uses b43 instead.
- wireless.docs.kernel.org
The FAQ states b43legacy is needed for 802.11b-only chipsets or BCM4306 rev 2; other devices, including BCM4306 rev 3, use b43.
- lore.kernel.org
The driver still receives upstream integration churn through shared mac80211/cfg80211 changes in 2025, indicating it is not abandoned in-tree.
- lore.kernel.org
The driver was still being mechanically updated in 2026 treewide work, so it continues to be kept buildable by upstream.
codex reasoning notes (technical)
Not a phase-1 early-exit case: this is a real wireless driver directory. `web.search_query` produced the LKDDb and Linux Wireless docs URLs, which identify the hardware as very old BCM4301/early-BCM4306-era 802.11b/g parts and imply b43 is the path for newer Broadcom SoftMAC devices, not a replacement for these exact chips. `mcp__lore_http__.lore_file_timeline` on `drivers/net/wireless/broadcom/b43legacy/main.c` showed touches through 2025-06 and 2026-02, but the visible subjects are shared-stack/treewide maintenance rather than evidence of fresh product demand or an active removal series. Recommendation is `keep-annotate`: hardware is obsolete and not plausibly sold new in 2025, deployments are likely residual legacy only, but upstream still carries and updates it and there is no clear same-hardware replacement driver.