How to use native bcm43xx support for Broadcom BCM4318 [AirForce One 54g] in FC5

[smfinley]

Be sure you have a fully updated Fedora Core 5 system with the most recent kernel. (Do a "yum -y update" as root and then reboot when the update finishes.)

Go to ftp://ftp.support.acer-euro.com/notebook/aspire_3020_5020/driver/ and get ftp://ftp.support.acer-euro.com/notebook/aspire_3020_5020/driver/80211g.zip.

Unzip 80211g.zip. (Use the command "unzip 80211g.zip".) Do a "cp ./80211g/bcmwl5.sys ~/".

Install the fwcutter package from Fedora Extras by doing a "yum -y install bcm43xx-fwcutter" as root.

Extract the firmware from bcmwl5.sys by doing a "/usr/bin/bcm43xx-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware bcmwl5.sys" as root in the directory in which you saved bcmwl5.sys (in our case your home directory). You can verify that fwcutter extracted the firmware to /lib/firmware by doing a "ls /lib/firmware".

Set up Network Manger to automatically connect to your wireless and wired connections with the following commands, entering your root password as prompted after each command:su -c '/sbin/chkconfig --level 345 NetworkManager on'su -c '/sbin/chkconfig --level 345 NetworkManagerDispatcher on'su -c '/sbin/service NetworkManager start ; /sbin/service NetworkManagerDispatcher start'
Reboot your machine. The network manager icon will appear on your panel and you will be prompted to enter a gnome keyring password and your wireless network WPA key and other information.

Note: You may have to change your wireless router's network mode from G only to mixed in order to connect.

[LaChild]

The instructions worked perfectly. Thanks!

[jodgi]

It seems I came real close but didn't make it...

Followed the instructions and got to the point where I could see the SSID of my wireless network.
After clicking on my SSID and providing the WEP key my whole system froze.
I had to go into rescue mode and manually delete the files in /lib/firmware to relog into my system.
I tried to fwcut both the downloaded file "provided" in this how-to and the "bcmwl5.sys" file in my windows folder.

I'm running a x86_64 fedora. Could that be the problem? I guess the windows bcmwl5.sys drivers are 32bit?

<this linux vs. broadcom thing is such a showstopper :mad: >

[Vector]

What is the difference between this tutorial and the one for the NDIS wrapper?
I haven't gotten either of them to work, not sure which one is right for me.

[Mordacil]

Ok, I did all of the above, but when I tried to activate eth1, I got the message:

Device eth1 does not seem to be present, delaying initialization.

I have an integrated card, a broacom air force one 54g 4318. The drivers were right, fwcutter worked fine, but it isn't working.

[Vector]

Hey, i know this is going to hurt you more than it hurts me, but chances are you have tried to get this running for quite a while now, and there's a lot of junk leftover from previous unsucessful attempts that is conflicting with it.

I had the same problem you had getting this working with mine, plus many MANY others, but i got it working anyway... after a fresh install. Remeber, i've only been using Linux for a few days now, so i don't know much at all about it, but if i can get it to work for me, i'm sure we can get it to work for you.

So...
Either reinstall and follow the directions that i will post when i get back from the store, or if you have enough experience with Ferdora, remove every single item and driver that you have attempted to install for this device. But even if you know how to do this, i'd still reinstall (just to make damned sure that all that junk is cleared out).

Like i said, i can post the method i used when i get back later, unless you're not willing to reinstall, or have solved the problem. By the way, what kind of laptop are you using? I know it doesn't matter because it's the drivers for the chipset that we're worried about, but i'm just curious.

Seeya.

[Mordacil]

Gateway 3300+

Edit: I tinkered around with my router settings, and now the wireless is working. Thanks to all.

[ike_27]

Hey, i know this is going to hurt you more than it hurts me, but chances are you have tried to get this running for quite a while now, and there's a lot of junk leftover from previous unsucessful attempts that is conflicting with it.

I had the same problem you had getting this working with mine, plus many MANY others, but i got it working anyway... after a fresh install. Remeber, i've only been using Linux for a few days now, so i don't know much at all about it, but if i can get it to work for me, i'm sure we can get it to work for you.

So...
Either reinstall and follow the directions that i will post when i get back from the store, or if you have enough experience with Ferdora, remove every single item and driver that you have attempted to install for this device. But even if you know how to do this, i'd still reinstall (just to make damned sure that all that junk is cleared out).

Like i said, i can post the method i used when i get back later, unless you're not willing to reinstall, or have solved the problem. By the way, what kind of laptop are you using? I know it doesn't matter because it's the drivers for the chipset that we're worried about, but i'm just curious.

Seeya.
can u post the steps abt how to cleanup old installs, download and install ndiswrapper and lastly did u use the fwcutter or u just blacklisted bcwxxx?

[Vector]

Sorry, completely forgot about this one...
I would NOT recommend using the fwcutter, it F*CKED my system UP.
Even multiple restarts wouldn't clear whatever it did, i had to reinstall.
BUT, this may have been an isolated incident, who knows...

Ok, what i did was a fresh install of the system.
But if you do the following it might help:
*Uninstall the ndis wrapper that you already tried to install (ndiswrapper -e bcmwl5),
*Go into 'Network' settings and delete any device that says it's wireless (on the FIRST tab, NOT the second one),
*Go into the /etc/modprobe.d/ and add 'blacklist bcm43xx' to both the blacklist docs (not sure if you REALLY need the 2nd one),
*Go into /etc/ and open 'modprobe.config' and remove any line that has 'alias eth1 bcm43xx', or any 'bcm43xx' line at all,
*Reboot.

After logging back in:
*First install the ndiswrapper (yum ndiswrapper),
*Then install the driver (ndiswrapper -i /root/Desktop/wherever/the/hell/you/put/this/bcmwl5.inf)
*Terminal-> modprobe ,
*Terminal-> ndiswrapper -m ,
*Terminal-> dmesg to see if it says anything about the device wlan or ndiswrapper (NOT bcm*),
*Then add the wlan/ndiswrapper to 'System->Administration->Network' (leave all options default, you can specify wep keys later),
*Do NOT try to activate it,
*Then edit the device to start when the system starts, and to be able to toggle on and off),
*Save settings and close the window,
*Go to System->Administration->Server Settings->Services,
*Click the boxes to enable the top two options (net NetworkManager, NetworkManagerDispatch),
*Click File->Save,
*Select the first NetworkManager service, click start,
*Do the same thing for the second NetworkManagerDispatch service,
*Go down to the 'Network' service (~= five clicks down on the scroll bar),
*Restart it,
*Terminal-> 'dhclient ndiswrapper'
*In the system tray, click on the networkManager,
*Select a wireless network,
*Enter your credentials (correctly; ASCII != HEX || Phrase)

If you can see your wlan device in the modprobe, and have removed the apropriate entries from the apropriate files, and you still don't have a wireless option, reboot.
I had to do alllllllllllllllllllll that ****, and then reboot.
When you're bootin up, at the progress screen hit 'alt + d' for details, and watch what it says when it get's to the 'wlan' part (right after eth0), and if it simply says 'Done', you're good.
If it doesn't say that, i've still had my device work, so i don't completely understand WHY my device is working sometimes, lmmfao, but it does, and i'm just happy that i can remember how to do this after a re-install.

This may not be the best way, but it's what got me working when this tutorial didn't work 100% for me (it's still a good tutorial none-the-less ;))

If i remember anything else relevant to this, i will update accordingly, but remember, if this doesn't work, i am definately NOT the person you want to ask for help, because i've only been using Fedora for about a week now, and i'm even less experienced than you are at it, so i could offer you no help beyond this little bit that i figured out (sorry).

Good luck, i know it was a pain in the ass for me too.

[jodgi]

Installed FC5 i386 and followed smfinleys instructions. Now it works. TY :)

[dfifita]

smfinley,

I followed your instructions and it came up OK, recognizing the network I need to connect to. However, when I tried to connect, it failed. The network I need to connect to is 80211b. Are your instruction compatible for b networks? Is there another .sys file to use to make it work, or should it work based on the instructions you gave.

thanks,

Troy

[Vector]

Yeah, i had the same problem, and it was really pissing me off because i knew that i was using the correct wireless mode and wep key. If your router is configured to allow b network mode, then it should work, well as far as Fedora goes it should work regardless of what your router is set to, you just won't connect to it if the router doesn't accept b mode.
What i eventually tried was the option at the bottom, that asks you if it is open authentication or not. It SHOULD'VE been the first option, but after trying everything else, i finally tried changing that to the second option and for some stupid reason it worked.
I'm not on Gnome right now, but i'll switch to it later and take a screenshot of what i'm talking about and edit this post to include that.

But try that, and it should work (hopefully).

[forbes]

I followed these instructions to the t, but after a reboot, it's like nothing happened. No eth1 is listed, doesn't even exist. Nothing pops up...nada. Any ideas?

[timmn]

I'm trying to get the Broadcom BCM4318 wireless circuitry working in my Acer Aspire 3000 laptop with FC5.

I first tried fwcutter, then the computer would boot, the light on the front of the computer would flash on and off (yellow) and then peroidically flash. After putting in my network information, when I tried to activate it, I got a message stating "No link present. Check cable?".

I did a reinstall of FC5 and then tried ndiswrapper, that did nothing at all.

As much as I dislike Windows, it does have one thing going for it, the wireless circuitry on this laptop works with it.

[jodgi]

As much as I dislike Windows, it does have one thing going for it, the wireless circuitry on this laptop works with it.

Aye! There lies the rub!

I'm too am held hostage by windows ;)

I've been "looking" at linux over the last 10 years, always some technicality (or: my own linux shortcomings) that keeps me strung out on windows.

As long as hardware manufacturers need money (!) and therefore won't allow the open linux world to look closely at their cards, we'll run into this little difficulty.

It's a bit of a "catch 22". I'm not at all kicking at the open software world, it's just a normal computer user's pragmatic view.

Maybe in another 10 years everyone will provide linux drivers?

<sigh>

[Vector]

lmmfao, you know, that goes the same here. i have been trying to use linux ever since i first touched a pc 2 years ago, but there was ALWAYS something that windows could do that linux couldn't do without GREAT effort and knowlege; so windows 'had me captive' as well, and like you mentioned, hardware manufacturers are discouraged from making linux drivers.

But for some reason, this last 'go round', i REALLY started catching on to think *nix thing, so well that i don't even have windows installed anymore (but i might have to install it for one particular use, which i'm getting ready to make a post about in the software forums). I love Linux, and i'm glad to be windows free.

As far as the guy 2 posts up, getting that to work is a b*tch, you have to do everything in JUST the right order it seems, and unfortunately i don't know enough yet about linux to understand WHY it worked for me, and why it WON'T work for you if you do it differently. But i definately know what you're going through, because the getting the wireless internet working is what really pushed my to uninstall windows ;)!

So try to follow my directions if maybe you didn't understand his directions, and see if that helps.

Good luck

[ronald.watson]

After living in ndiswrapper hell for two months, I finally got it working on my HP Pavillion zv6000!!!!

One additional note though, if you're using the x86-64 version of FC5 like I am make sure you have the 64 bit windows drivers and you have the latest updates via "yum update" BEFORE you ever begin the steps below.


:D :D :D :D

Be sure you have a fully updated Fedora Core 5 system with the most recent kernel. (Do a "yum -y update" as root and then reboot when the update finishes.)

Go to ftp://ftp.support.acer-euro.com/notebook/aspire_3020_5020/driver/ and get ftp://ftp.support.acer-euro.com/notebook/aspire_3020_5020/driver/80211g.zip.

Unzip 80211g.zip. (Use the command "unzip 80211g.zip".) Do a "cp ./80211g/bcmwl5.sys ~/".

Install the fwcutter package from Fedora Extras by doing a "yum -y install bcm43xx-fwcutter" as root.

Extract the firmware from bcmwl5.sys by doing a "/usr/bin/bcm43xx-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware bcmwl5.sys" as root in the directory in which you saved bcmwl5.sys (in our case your home directory). You can verify that fwcutter extracted the firmware to /lib/firmware by doing a "ls /lib/firmware".

Set up Network Manger to automatically connect to your wireless and wired connections with the following commands, entering your root password as prompted after each command:su -c '/sbin/chkconfig --level 345 NetworkManager on'su -c '/sbin/chkconfig --level 345 NetworkManagerDispatcher on'su -c '/sbin/service NetworkManager start ; /sbin/service NetworkManagerDispatcher start'
Reboot your machine. The network manager icon will appear on your panel and you will be prompted to enter a gnome keyring password and your wireless network WPA key and other information.

Note: You may have to change your wireless router's network mode from G only to mixed in order to connect.

[ronald.watson]

After living in ndiswrapper hell for two months, I finally got it working on my HP Pavillion zv6000!!!!

One additional note though, if you're using the x86-64 version of FC5 like I am make sure you have the 64 bit windows drivers and you have the latest updates via "yum update" BEFORE you ever begin the steps below.


:D :D :D :D


Well all, I'm afraid I my have to stand at least partially corrected. While this did work the first time I installed, it seems to drop the wireless connection without notification the connection no longer exists. Any ideas?

[jodgi]

Any ideas?

...give up?...

[IPI]

before i went through the instructions, i updated the network manager alone and suddenly after a reboot, the broadcom card disapierd from the list of wireless cards, so there is no way to install it... even though i couldn't find the card anymore, i went through the instructions and basically didn't work... :( any idea how can i get the broadcom card back on? or should i do a fresh install? when i click on network configuration, under devices , there is only eth0 which is my nic card and when i go to install the new wireless card the broadcom is not there... however, when i click on hardware (in network configuration) and beside my nic card there is : Broadcom Corporation BC , with type set to Ethernet... after double clicking on it, another window comes up, in the adapter part: it says Broadcom corporation BCM4306 802.11b/g Wireless lan controller and the device is set tho eth1... any idea what is goin on??? and here is the result of iwconfig:

# iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

sit0 no wireless extensions.

the eth1 doesn't even show up here....

[Desas]

Hi I have some problems getting my wireless card to work.
It is the Broadcom BCM4318 card but i think the problem is related to my laptop .
i followed the steps of the first post and everything seemed ok but i dont find any wireless networks, some guy posted he got the SSID of his wireless network but i cant find mine :). I can type it in though and I have tried "setting " it up, the wireless device is there it just dont work. As i said i think its related to my laptop but im not sure. my laptop is a Fujitsu Siemens Amilo 1655g which has an external button which controls the wlan. is this common with the broacom chip ? or is it special for my laptop
found a suse guide which solves it by installing this :
Download the fsaa1655g source from http://www.marvec.org/amilo/
Everything is ok but the wireless card is not started!
This module can start/stop the card.
Extract the fsaa1655g source and run make && make install

I tried using this module after I followed the guide here but I cant seem to compile this or anything else. I can post the "error message"(the one i got when compiling) if its needed.
Was wondering if anyone encountered the same problem or installed on this laptop without a problem ?

[IPI]

Well, i got finally mine to work... !!!

i don't even have to type in the essid, it will pick up the signal.... just like windows.... first (5 days ago) when started to look for ways to make this work, i was running away from ndiswrapper and i wanted to make the wireless card work with native driver which i thought would be perfect.. but let me tell u this... it is not worth it... it will not work... at least it didn't for me... after upgrading my kernel to 2.6.17 Fedora 5, the OS detected the card and i followed about 10 diffrent instructions online and i did fresh install about 6 times.... at the very end the result: ndiswrapper... it is so easy and works like a charm... it picks up diffrent essids since i set it to auto.....

i am using FC5 and i used yum to install the ndiswrapper, whicih went smothly... i tried to make the files and do make-install... there was alway a problem in the making of the files .. so i first installed Livna and then used a simple su -c 'yum install kmod-ndiswrapper to install the ndiswrapper... then loaded the driver and boom.. restart .. and it did work... the only thing that u have to watch out for is the blacklist in the modprobe, because u have to hide the native driver..... and everything worked fine...... i even tried suse 10.1 to see if it will work .. but no luck.. now i got it to work with FC5... thanks to all the people who posted instructions and spend time online :)

[anthonybaloney]

i wanted to thank smfinley. followed directions and wireless card works good.
i was having problems configuring my card with wpa_suplicant.
i tried a couple of how to"s on configuring wpa, but my card shows up as dev1804289383, not wlan0 or wifi 0 or anything else like that.
i tried to input all that in the config file for wpa_suplicant
but i get device not found.
i guess if anybody has a working bcm43xx card with wpa, maybe they could post their "/etc/sysconfig/wpa_supplicant"
it would be very helpful to me
thanks in advance
and thanks again to smfinley

[drinkpepsi]

I use the zv6000, and the wireless works fine, even with the 32bit drivers on the x86-64 version of FC5. What kind of router are you using?

[atarime69]

thank you to mr finley, this even works with a buffalo wli-cb-g54l, updated fedora5, no ndiswrapper (it can be very fussy, tried the same card with Ubuntu- unsuccessful), followed all steps and there it goes! choose your available wireless connection, choose your wep setup, login, shared key, network manager will then ask to setup a password for the nm-applet, make one and OK it. That's it. The laptop? it's a Fujitsu biblo nb10al.

cheers,
atarime69
hyogo, harimacho, japan

[Darkmage]

i wanted to thank smfinley. followed directions and wireless card works good.
i was having problems configuring my card with wpa_suplicant.
i tried a couple of how to"s on configuring wpa, but my card shows up as dev1804289383, not wlan0 or wifi 0 or anything else like that.
i tried to input all that in the config file for wpa_suplicant
but i get device not found.
i guess if anybody has a working bcm43xx card with wpa, maybe they could post their "/etc/sysconfig/wpa_supplicant"
it would be very helpful to me
thanks in advance
and thanks again to smfinley

Kudos to smfinley to nice how-to and here is my /etc/sysconfig/wpa_supplicant
# wlan0 and wifi0
# INTERFACES="-iwlan0 -iwifi0"
INTERFACES="-ieth1"
# ndiswrapper and prism
# DRIVERS="-Dndiswrapper -Dprism"
DRIVERS="-Dwext"

[noppie]

I tried to do "-c" I get command not found.
Now On this laptop I have no internet access. and I have to burn what i need to a cd and transfer it to the laptop.. Yum doesn't work.. the really sad thing is that I had the wireless working.. and I crashed it and had to reinstall and I don't know what I did to get it to work the first time.

please help me. I am very very frustrated.
I want to use the laptop
thank you very very much.
I have the last kernel I could find on rpm
kernel-2.6.17-1.2174_FCS
IF there is a newer one I can't find it..
ok.. I don't know what else you need to help
thank you inadvance
noppie


Be sure you have a fully updated Fedora Core 5 system with the most recent kernel. (Do a "yum -y update" as root and then reboot when the update finishes.)

Go to ftp://ftp.support.acer-euro.com/not...20_5020/driver/ and get ftp://ftp.support.acer-euro.com/not...iver/80211g.zip.

Unzip 80211g.zip. (Use the command "unzip 80211g.zip".) Do a "cp ./80211g/bcmwl5.sys ~/".

Install the fwcutter package from Fedora Extras by doing a "yum -y install bcm43xx-fwcutter" as root.

Extract the firmware from bcmwl5.sys by doing a "/usr/bin/bcm43xx-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware bcmwl5.sys" as root in the directory in which you saved bcmwl5.sys (in our case your home directory). You can verify that fwcutter extracted the firmware to /lib/firmware by doing a "ls /lib/firmware".

Set up Network Manger to automatically connect to your wireless and wired connections with the following commands, entering your root password as prompted after each command:
Code:

su -c '/sbin/chkconfig --level 345 NetworkManager on'

Code:

su -c '/sbin/chkconfig --level 345 NetworkManagerDispatcher on'

Code:

su -c '/sbin/service NetworkManager start ; /sbin/service NetworkManagerDispatcher start'

Reboot your machine. The network manager icon will appear on your panel and you will be prompted to enter a gnome keyring password and your wireless network WPA key and other information.

Note: You may have to change your wireless router's network mode from G only to mixed in order to connect.
___________________________
Stanton Finley
stanton-finley.net
Last edited by smfinley : 2006-07-07 at 10:15 PM PDT.

[Darkmage]

I tried to do "-c" I get command not found.
Now On this laptop I have no internet access. and I have to burn what i need to a cd and transfer it to the laptop.. Yum doesn't work.. the really sad thing is that I had the wireless working.. and I crashed it and had to reinstall and I don't know what I did to get it to work the first time.

please help me. I am very very frustrated.
I want to use the laptop
thank you very very much.
I have the last kernel I could find on rpm
kernel-2.6.17-1.2174_FCS
IF there is a newer one I can't find it..
ok.. I don't know what else you need to help
thank you inadvance
noppie

An easier way is to log in as root from a terminal and the run the command /sbin/chkconfig NetworkManager on, /sbin/chkconfig NetworkManagerDispatcher on etc

[noppie]

An easier way is to log in as root from a terminal and the run the command /sbin/chkconfig NetworkManager on, /sbin/chkconfig NetworkManagerDispatcher on etc
Ok thank you for the rely.
ok after this
Extract the firmware from bcmwl5.sys by doing a "/usr/bin/bcm43xx-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware bcmwl5.sys" as root in the directory in which you saved bcmwl5.sys (in our case your home directory). You can verify that fwcutter extracted the firmware to /lib/firmware by doing a "ls /lib/firmware".

do I need to do
/sbin/modprobe
all tthe other directions say to do that.
and I don't have to use the -c in the termial
Thank you again I don't want to have to use windows..

noppie

[noppie]

IK An easier way is to log in as root from a terminal and the run the command /sbin/chkconfig NetworkManager on, /sbin/chkconfig NetworkManagerDispatcher on etc
Ok
This is what I did today.
I reloaded the fc5 because I noticed that when system boots up
I don't see
"starting etho " something to the effect..
I thought maybe there was something I didn't do right when I installed the OS --there wasn't anything that I noticed that set up the networking.

ok so I reinstall the OS
updated the Kernel to the 2.6.17-1.2174 and installed the Kernel devel same number
then I rebooted the computer
Then I installed the bcm43xx-fwcutter-004-1.fc5.i386.rpm
and then open the /usr/share/doc/bcm43xx-fwcutter-004
/usr/bin/bcm43xx-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware home/noppie/NT/bcmwl5.sys
got the normal output everyone else gets

then I did
/sbin/modprobe bcm43xx
and I added the modprobe.bcm43xx into the etc/modprobe.d directory
like the read me file said.

then I did
A/sbin/chkconfig NetworkManager on, /sbin/chkconfig NetworkManagerDispatcher on etc
like you told me

and when I go to hit Active
I get:
Determining IP information of eth0...failed;no link present. check cable
Well I have no cable to check..
and I know it is reading the card because I had removed it when I was activating to reactive it and it gave me a card not there error.. Something to that effect.

so I rebooted the computer
I still don't see
Starting ... ethO [good] or [failed]
and no wireless.
where did I go wrong.. and what can you do to help
please I am begging you..
what is so frustrating is i had it and the computer crashed and i had to reinstall the OP and not I can't remember how I got this to work.
thank you again
and please remember I have no internet access on the laptop.
and I am using a desktop with fedora on it.. to add any software i have to burn it on the disk and transfer it.
thank you
noppie

[noppie]

What I tried today
I copied the from the /usr/share/docs/bcm43xx-fwcutter/modprode.fedora
into the modprobe.conf
why did I do that becasue I saw it in my searching
when i did that the applet showed the wireless working but the networkmanger still won't cont.
I get can't find IP you know check cables.
I am just stumped
noppie



no I get
Determing IP information for eth0...dhclient (1431) is already running - exiting
exiting.
faild

[noppie]

Ok this is another thing I have tried.
I put the content of fedora.bcm43xx into the modprobe.conf
/usr/share/doc/bcm43xx-fwcutter is where I got the fedora.bcm43xx
so when I boot up the computer the panel applet shows the card connecting. but not activated in the NetworkManager area
so I go to activated it I get this erorr

Determining IP information for eth0...PING
192.168.123.254.(192.168.123.254) from
192.168.123.113 eth0: 56(84)byes of data

-- 192.168.123.254 ping statistics ------
3 packets transmitted, 0 received, +3 errors,
100% packet loss, time 2009ms
, pipe 3
failed.
|


is this becaue I put stuff from ferdora.bcm43xx.modprobe.conf
in.. why does it read the card then say I am connect but I really not where do I go from here..
or do I go back to windows
I really hate to go to windows
noppie

[lmurillo]

At first I followed the instructions on using the native bcm34xx to install the wireless card in my HP dv5224nr laptop, but that didn't work, so I followed the instructions that alex-grim posted a while back and that worked.

I did run some commands that were mentioned by smfinley mentioned, the ones that enable the Network Manager applet on gnome, which is a very helpful applet if you ask me.

[noppie]

At first I followed the instructions on using the native bcm34xx to install the wireless card in my HP dv5224nr laptop, but that didn't work, so I followed the instructions that alex-grim posted a while back and that worked.

I did run some commands that were mentioned by smfinley mentioned, the ones that enable the Network Manager applet on gnome, which is a very helpful applet if you ask me.
I did as you suggested and low and behold it works.. I am online.. I even turned off the computer and rebooted it and it is still online. yea..
Noppie
have a great day all
and I hope no more crashes
:p

[wes65]

Omgosh.... Finally something that works. I have about 30 hours total work in this freaking wireless card and finally you showed me how to get it to work! Thanks!!!!

[L3RK3R]

I confirm that this works on an Emachine M6810 with FC5-64bit (Athlon64 3200+, VIA chipset, ATI Radeon 9600 64MB, Broadcom 4306).

There are caveats.

After initial install the graphical glitches were fairly severe but on a hunch I did a full yum. New kernel, drivers, etc were installed and video is good after some tweaking.

A first for me is that the wifi card was actually RECOGNIZED in the Network Configuration Hardware Tab but still no connection going.

Searched for a few hours and stumbled upon this godsend of a forum topic. Read through entire post, got 64bit drivers, followed instructions, and now wifi works.

This is the first time i've gotten this system to work reliably and feature complete with 64bit linux. Not once did I have to futz with ndiswrapper.

Thank you Mr. Finley and community! :D

[ronald.watson]

Well all, I'm afraid I my have to stand at least partially corrected. While this did work the first time I installed, it seems to drop the wireless connection without notification the connection no longer exists. Any ideas?

For some reason it works like a champ now...I guess a yum update solved it. Now time to make the DVD player work....

[o2binh20]

I have been reading as much as I can about setting up my Wi-Fi on my laptop before I actually jump in with both feet (mainly because I'm not an expert with Linux yet).

Refring to the append by smfinely, I always thought of "firmware" as a software update that is usually applied to the CMOS (NVRAM) of a piece of hardware. With that in mind I'm concerned about instructions for downloading and installing the firmware at the start of this thread. Is this really making an update to the hardware or is it really a component to Fedora 5? My concern is that if this updates my hardware, how will it affect my ability to use wi-fi in Winblows XP? Or for that matter my computers warranty? Generally, it is difficult to back out of a hardware's firmware upgrade.

Am I just missunderstanding the use of the term "firmware" as it is used here?

Cheers,
John

[mcangeli]

No worries. Here the term firmware means the libraries the OS needs in order to use the chip.

It doesn't touch the bios, or your windows install, or anything on the chip itself.

[ronald.watson]

I have been reading as much as I can about setting up my Wi-Fi on my laptop before I actually jump in with both feet (mainly because I'm not an expert with Linux yet).

Refring to the append by smfinely, I always thought of "firmware" as a software update that is usually applied to the CMOS (NVRAM) of a piece of hardware. With that in mind I'm concerned about instructions for downloading and installing the firmware at the start of this thread. Is this really making an update to the hardware or is it really a component to Fedora 5? My concern is that if this updates my hardware, how will it affect my ability to use wi-fi in Winblows XP? Or for that matter my computers warranty? Generally, it is difficult to back out of a hardware's firmware upgrade.

Am I just missunderstanding the use of the term "firmware" as it is used here?

Cheers,
John


The term "firmware" can refer to any software that must communicate with hardware to make the hardware functional. So just as a BIOS flash update could be called firmware so can the software calls from a driver like your network card also be called firmware.

In this case the firmware is neither updating any hardware or a part of Fedora Core 5 (FC5). The firmware here is the software bits in the native windows driver that are extracted by fwcutter for use by FC5. Because this software resides on the linux partition it will not at all affect your ability to use Windows XP either from another partition in the case of a multi-boot PC or from a virtual machine like vmware or xen.

I hope it helps....

[o2binh20]

The clarification was helpful, makes my colon less iffy.

[Batman2372]

Okay, I've been pulling my hair out, and it's crunch time. I'd wait until the next FC release which is in a couple of weeks, but I'm going on "vacation" in a week, and the hotel only has wireless, so I'm scrambling at this point. I'm currently using 2.6.17-1.2187 and just running out of options. I'm pretty much a newbie in this area, so any pointers would definitely be appreciated.

I've tried the SF method, and it didn't do anything. I didn't even get the Network Manager icon on the panel to come up after a reboot.

I tried the other method, and I was able to get ndiswrapper to load, but system-network-config doesn't see the card. If I try a sbin/ifconfig wlan0, it just tells me device not found

I'm sure I'm not giving enough info to be helpful, so let me know if there's anything I can tell you to help you help me.

I can tell you that according to lspci, I have a Broadcom 4311 with a pciid of 14e4:4311 (rev 01)

[poblano]

Once upon a time I managed to get my Dell Inspiron B130 laptop to access my home WLAN using the FC5 native bcm43xx driver running on BLAG Linux and GNU (based upon Fedora Core 5). Then I brought it down to my son's college in Virginia, where the hotel's wireless network seemed impenetrable to it, while my son's Windows XP laptop had no issues. Since then I haven't been able to make a wireless connection to my Netgear WG102 access point. I've spent hours troubleshooting - even reinstalling BLAG and the bcm43xx firmware from scratch - to no avail.

A quick Google reveals that the error I see in /var/log/messages seems common enough:

pablo@grandpaboy=> dmesg | grep bcm43
bcm43xx driver
bcm43xx: Chip ID 0x4318, rev 0x2
bcm43xx: Number of cores: 4
bcm43xx: Core 0: ID 0x800, rev 0xd, vendor 0x4243, enabled
bcm43xx: Core 1: ID 0x812, rev 0x9, vendor 0x4243, disabled
bcm43xx: Core 2: ID 0x804, rev 0xc, vendor 0x4243, enabled
bcm43xx: Core 3: ID 0x80d, rev 0x7, vendor 0x4243, enabled
bcm43xx: PHY connected
bcm43xx: Detected PHY: Version: 3, Type 2, Revision 7
bcm43xx: Detected Radio: ID: 8205017f (Manuf: 17f Ver: 2050 Rev: 8)
bcm43xx: Radio turned off
bcm43xx: Radio turned off
bcm43xx: PHY connected
bcm43xx: Radio turned on
bcm43xx: ASSERTION FAILED (radio_attenuation < 10) at: drivers/net/wireless/bcm43xx/bcm43xx_phy.c:1485:bcm43xx_find_lopair()
bcm43xx: WARNING: Writing invalid LOpair (low: 53, high: 46, index: 134)
<f8a423e6> bcm43xx_phy_lo_adjust+0x2cc/0x2f1 [bcm43xx] <f8a41c56> bcm43xx_phy_initb6+0x72d/0x855 [bcm43xx]
<c0405047> do_IRQ+0x75/0x80 <f8a4307e> bcm43xx_phy_initg+0x11e/0xdb5 [bcm43xx]
<f8a44fb1> bcm43xx_phy_init+0x6dd/0x706 [bcm43xx] <f8a3e123> bcm43xx_radio_turn_on+0x23d/0x244 [bcm43xx]
<f8a337a9> bcm43xx_write_initvals+0x56/0x89 [bcm43xx] <f8a34c61> bcm43xx_chip_init+0x6aa/0x979 [bcm43xx]
<f8a36a76> bcm43xx_init_board+0x434/0xc00 [bcm43xx] <c05b3176> rtnetlink_dump_ifinfo+0x72/0x80
bcm43xx: ASSERTION FAILED (radio_attenuation < 10) at: drivers/net/wireless/bcm43xx/bcm43xx_phy.c:1485:bcm43xx_find_lopair()
bcm43xx: WARNING: Writing invalid LOpair (low: 53, high: 46, index: 134)
<f8a423e6> bcm43xx_phy_lo_adjust+0x2cc/0x2f1 [bcm43xx] <f8a43bd8> bcm43xx_phy_initg+0xc78/0xdb5 [bcm43xx]
<f8a44fb1> bcm43xx_phy_init+0x6dd/0x706 [bcm43xx] <f8a3e123> bcm43xx_radio_turn_on+0x23d/0x244 [bcm43xx]
<f8a337a9> bcm43xx_write_initvals+0x56/0x89 [bcm43xx] <f8a34c61> bcm43xx_chip_init+0x6aa/0x979 [bcm43xx]
<f8a36a76> bcm43xx_init_board+0x434/0xc00 [bcm43xx] <c05b3176> rtnetlink_dump_ifinfo+0x72/0x80
bcm43xx: ASSERTION FAILED (radio_attenuation < 10) at: drivers/net/wireless/bcm43xx/bcm43xx_phy.c:1485:bcm43xx_find_lopair()
bcm43xx: WARNING: Writing invalid LOpair (low: 53, high: 46, index: 134)
<f8a423e6> bcm43xx_phy_lo_adjust+0x2cc/0x2f1 [bcm43xx] <f8a40e43> bcm43xx_phy_init_pctl+0x270/0x286 [bcm43xx]
<f8a43cb7> bcm43xx_phy_initg+0xd57/0xdb5 [bcm43xx] <f8a44fb1> bcm43xx_phy_init+0x6dd/0x706 [bcm43xx]
<f8a3e123> bcm43xx_radio_turn_on+0x23d/0x244 [bcm43xx] <f8a337a9> bcm43xx_write_initvals+0x56/0x89 [bcm43xx]
<f8a34c61> bcm43xx_chip_init+0x6aa/0x979 [bcm43xx] <f8a36a76> bcm43xx_init_board+0x434/0xc00 [bcm43xx]
bcm43xx: Chip initialized
bcm43xx: DMA initialized
bcm43xx: 80211 cores initialized
bcm43xx: Keys cleared
bcm43xx: ASSERTION FAILED (radio_attenuation < 10) at: drivers/net/wireless/bcm43xx/bcm43xx_phy.c:1485:bcm43xx_find_lopair()
bcm43xx: WARNING: Writing invalid LOpair (low: 53, high: 46, index: 134)
<f8a423e6> bcm43xx_phy_lo_adjust+0x2cc/0x2f1 [bcm43xx] <f8a3f32e> bcm43xx_phy_set_baseband_attenuation+0x84/0x108 [bcm43xx]
<f8a42c8f> bcm43xx_phy_lo_g_measure+0x884/0xb55 [bcm43xx] <c0423caf> __mod_timer+0x8a/0x94
<f8a33542> bcm43xx_shm_read32+0x2c/0xa1 [bcm43xx] <f8a3408d> bcm43xx_periodic_task_handler+0xf0/0x325 [bcm43xx]
<c042372b> run_timer_softirq+0x10f/0x16b <f8a33f9d> bcm43xx_periodic_task_handler+0x0/0x325 [bcm43xx]
bcm43xx: set security called
bcm43xx: .level = 0
bcm43xx: .enabled = 0
bcm43xx: .encrypt = 0
bcm43xx: set security called
bcm43xx: .level = 0
bcm43xx: .enabled = 0
bcm43xx: .encrypt = 0
bcm43xx: set security called
bcm43xx: .level = 0
bcm43xx: .enabled = 0
bcm43xx: .encrypt = 0
bcm43xx: set security called
bcm43xx: .level = 0
bcm43xx: .enabled = 0
bcm43xx: .encrypt = 0
bcm43xx: set security called
bcm43xx: .level = 0
bcm43xx: .enabled = 0
bcm43xx: .encrypt = 0
bcm43xx: set security called
bcm43xx: .level = 0
bcm43xx: .enabled = 0
bcm43xx: .encrypt = 0
bcm43xx: set security called
bcm43xx: .level = 0
bcm43xx: .enabled = 0
bcm43xx: .encrypt = 0
bcm43xx: Radio turned off
bcm43xx: DMA 0x0200 (RX) max used slots: 0/64
bcm43xx: DMA 0x0260 (TX) max used slots: 0/512
bcm43xx: DMA 0x0240 (TX) max used slots: 0/512
bcm43xx: DMA 0x0220 (TX) max used slots: 2/512
bcm43xx: DMA 0x0200 (TX) max used slots: 0/512
bcm43xx: Radio turned on
bcm43xx: Chip initialized
bcm43xx: DMA initialized
bcm43xx: 80211 cores initialized
bcm43xx: Keys cleared

Unfortunately the only remedy seems to be either hand patching the kernel or waiting until 2.6.19. The modules are there:

root@grandpaboy=> lsmod | grep bcm
bcm43xx 422209 0
ieee80211softmac 31553 1 bcm43xx
ieee80211 31625 2 bcm43xx,ieee80211softmac

but an iwconfig shows that the access point is "invalid".

root@grandpaboy=> iwconfig eth1
eth1 IEEE 802.11b/g ESSID:off/any Nickname:"Broadcom 4318"
Mode:Managed Frequency=2.484 GHz Access Point: Invalid
Bit Rate=11 Mb/s Tx-Power=18 dBm
RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

This is the case no matter how many times I reset the wireless router or reboot the PC.
Worst of all, my wife keeps asking the question "why don't you just install Windows? You know it works." What's a poor Linux enthusiast to do? *sigh*

[TTA89]

Worked perfectly in my Dell D410 laptop. Thanks!!!!

[Darkmage]

Once upon a time I managed to get my Dell Inspiron B130 laptop to access my home WLAN using the FC5 native bcm43xx driver running on BLAG Linux and GNU (based upon Fedora Core 5). Then I brought it down to my son's college in Virginia, where the hotel's wireless network seemed impenetrable to it, while my son's Windows XP laptop had no issues. Since then I haven't been able to make a wireless connection to my Netgear WG102 access point. I've spent hours troubleshooting - even reinstalling BLAG and the bcm43xx firmware from scratch - to no avail.

A quick Google reveals that the error I see in /var/log/messages seems common enough:

pablo@grandpaboy=> dmesg | grep bcm43
bcm43xx driver
bcm43xx: Chip ID 0x4318, rev 0x2
bcm43xx: Number of cores: 4
bcm43xx: Core 0: ID 0x800, rev 0xd, vendor 0x4243, enabled
bcm43xx: Core 1: ID 0x812, rev 0x9, vendor 0x4243, disabled
bcm43xx: Core 2: ID 0x804, rev 0xc, vendor 0x4243, enabled
bcm43xx: Core 3: ID 0x80d, rev 0x7, vendor 0x4243, enabled
bcm43xx: PHY connected
bcm43xx: Detected PHY: Version: 3, Type 2, Revision 7
bcm43xx: Detected Radio: ID: 8205017f (Manuf: 17f Ver: 2050 Rev: 8)
bcm43xx: Radio turned off
bcm43xx: Radio turned off
bcm43xx: PHY connected
bcm43xx: Radio turned on
bcm43xx: ASSERTION FAILED (radio_attenuation < 10) at: drivers/net/wireless/bcm43xx/bcm43xx_phy.c:1485:bcm43xx_find_lopair()
bcm43xx: WARNING: Writing invalid LOpair (low: 53, high: 46, index: 134)
<f8a423e6> bcm43xx_phy_lo_adjust+0x2cc/0x2f1 [bcm43xx] <f8a41c56> bcm43xx_phy_initb6+0x72d/0x855 [bcm43xx]
<c0405047> do_IRQ+0x75/0x80 <f8a4307e> bcm43xx_phy_initg+0x11e/0xdb5 [bcm43xx]
<f8a44fb1> bcm43xx_phy_init+0x6dd/0x706 [bcm43xx] <f8a3e123> bcm43xx_radio_turn_on+0x23d/0x244 [bcm43xx]
<f8a337a9> bcm43xx_write_initvals+0x56/0x89 [bcm43xx] <f8a34c61> bcm43xx_chip_init+0x6aa/0x979 [bcm43xx]
<f8a36a76> bcm43xx_init_board+0x434/0xc00 [bcm43xx] <c05b3176> rtnetlink_dump_ifinfo+0x72/0x80
bcm43xx: ASSERTION FAILED (radio_attenuation < 10) at: drivers/net/wireless/bcm43xx/bcm43xx_phy.c:1485:bcm43xx_find_lopair()
bcm43xx: WARNING: Writing invalid LOpair (low: 53, high: 46, index: 134)
<f8a423e6> bcm43xx_phy_lo_adjust+0x2cc/0x2f1 [bcm43xx] <f8a43bd8> bcm43xx_phy_initg+0xc78/0xdb5 [bcm43xx]
<f8a44fb1> bcm43xx_phy_init+0x6dd/0x706 [bcm43xx] <f8a3e123> bcm43xx_radio_turn_on+0x23d/0x244 [bcm43xx]
<f8a337a9> bcm43xx_write_initvals+0x56/0x89 [bcm43xx] <f8a34c61> bcm43xx_chip_init+0x6aa/0x979 [bcm43xx]
<f8a36a76> bcm43xx_init_board+0x434/0xc00 [bcm43xx] <c05b3176> rtnetlink_dump_ifinfo+0x72/0x80
bcm43xx: ASSERTION FAILED (radio_attenuation < 10) at: drivers/net/wireless/bcm43xx/bcm43xx_phy.c:1485:bcm43xx_find_lopair()
bcm43xx: WARNING: Writing invalid LOpair (low: 53, high: 46, index: 134)
<f8a423e6> bcm43xx_phy_lo_adjust+0x2cc/0x2f1 [bcm43xx] <f8a40e43> bcm43xx_phy_init_pctl+0x270/0x286 [bcm43xx]
<f8a43cb7> bcm43xx_phy_initg+0xd57/0xdb5 [bcm43xx] <f8a44fb1> bcm43xx_phy_init+0x6dd/0x706 [bcm43xx]
<f8a3e123> bcm43xx_radio_turn_on+0x23d/0x244 [bcm43xx] <f8a337a9> bcm43xx_write_initvals+0x56/0x89 [bcm43xx]
<f8a34c61> bcm43xx_chip_init+0x6aa/0x979 [bcm43xx] <f8a36a76> bcm43xx_init_board+0x434/0xc00 [bcm43xx]
bcm43xx: Chip initialized
bcm43xx: DMA initialized
bcm43xx: 80211 cores initialized
bcm43xx: Keys cleared
bcm43xx: ASSERTION FAILED (radio_attenuation < 10) at: drivers/net/wireless/bcm43xx/bcm43xx_phy.c:1485:bcm43xx_find_lopair()
bcm43xx: WARNING: Writing invalid LOpair (low: 53, high: 46, index: 134)
<f8a423e6> bcm43xx_phy_lo_adjust+0x2cc/0x2f1 [bcm43xx] <f8a3f32e> bcm43xx_phy_set_baseband_attenuation+0x84/0x108 [bcm43xx]
<f8a42c8f> bcm43xx_phy_lo_g_measure+0x884/0xb55 [bcm43xx] <c0423caf> __mod_timer+0x8a/0x94
<f8a33542> bcm43xx_shm_read32+0x2c/0xa1 [bcm43xx] <f8a3408d> bcm43xx_periodic_task_handler+0xf0/0x325 [bcm43xx]
<c042372b> run_timer_softirq+0x10f/0x16b <f8a33f9d> bcm43xx_periodic_task_handler+0x0/0x325 [bcm43xx]
bcm43xx: set security called
bcm43xx: .level = 0
bcm43xx: .enabled = 0
bcm43xx: .encrypt = 0
bcm43xx: set security called
bcm43xx: .level = 0
bcm43xx: .enabled = 0
bcm43xx: .encrypt = 0
bcm43xx: set security called
bcm43xx: .level = 0
bcm43xx: .enabled = 0
bcm43xx: .encrypt = 0
bcm43xx: set security called
bcm43xx: .level = 0
bcm43xx: .enabled = 0
bcm43xx: .encrypt = 0
bcm43xx: set security called
bcm43xx: .level = 0
bcm43xx: .enabled = 0
bcm43xx: .encrypt = 0
bcm43xx: set security called
bcm43xx: .level = 0
bcm43xx: .enabled = 0
bcm43xx: .encrypt = 0
bcm43xx: set security called
bcm43xx: .level = 0
bcm43xx: .enabled = 0
bcm43xx: .encrypt = 0
bcm43xx: Radio turned off
bcm43xx: DMA 0x0200 (RX) max used slots: 0/64
bcm43xx: DMA 0x0260 (TX) max used slots: 0/512
bcm43xx: DMA 0x0240 (TX) max used slots: 0/512
bcm43xx: DMA 0x0220 (TX) max used slots: 2/512
bcm43xx: DMA 0x0200 (TX) max used slots: 0/512
bcm43xx: Radio turned on
bcm43xx: Chip initialized
bcm43xx: DMA initialized
bcm43xx: 80211 cores initialized
bcm43xx: Keys cleared

Unfortunately the only remedy seems to be either hand patching the kernel or waiting until 2.6.19. The modules are there:

root@grandpaboy=> lsmod | grep bcm
bcm43xx 422209 0
ieee80211softmac 31553 1 bcm43xx
ieee80211 31625 2 bcm43xx,ieee80211softmac

but an iwconfig shows that the access point is "invalid".

root@grandpaboy=> iwconfig eth1
eth1 IEEE 802.11b/g ESSID:off/any Nickname:"Broadcom 4318"
Mode:Managed Frequency=2.484 GHz Access Point: Invalid
Bit Rate=11 Mb/s Tx-Power=18 dBm
RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

This is the case no matter how many times I reset the wireless router or reboot the PC.
Worst of all, my wife keeps asking the question "why don't you just install Windows? You know it works." What's a poor Linux enthusiast to do? *sigh*

I will say try another driver for the wifi nic card

[rortizde]

After following all instructions, I can finally get my wireless (eth1) card to activate and the light on the wifi indicator to light up. My problem now is that I can't scan for any networks, and when my computer boots, its gives me the "...no link present...check cable?" error. It seems like all is well with my card, it just doesn't find any wireless networks.

[jodgi]

SMFinleys original instructions didn't work out completely on my laptop with core 5.

However, with core 6 it now works perfectly!

[(V)eGa]

Sorry, completely forgot about this one...
I would NOT recommend using the fwcutter, it F*CKED my system UP.
Even multiple restarts wouldn't clear whatever it did, i had to reinstall.
BUT, this may have been an isolated incident, who knows...

Ok, what i did was a fresh install of the system.
But if you do the following it might help:
*Uninstall the ndis wrapper that you already tried to install (ndiswrapper -e bcmwl5),
*Go into 'Network' settings and delete any device that says it's wireless (on the FIRST tab, NOT the second one),
*Go into the /etc/modprobe.d/ and add 'blacklist bcm43xx' to both the blacklist docs (not sure if you REALLY need the 2nd one),
*Go into /etc/ and open 'modprobe.config' and remove any line that has 'alias eth1 bcm43xx', or any 'bcm43xx' line at all,
*Reboot.

After logging back in:
*First install the ndiswrapper (yum ndiswrapper),
*Then install the driver (ndiswrapper -i /root/Desktop/wherever/the/hell/you/put/this/bcmwl5.inf)
*Terminal-> modprobe ,
*Terminal-> ndiswrapper -m ,
*Terminal-> dmesg to see if it says anything about the device wlan or ndiswrapper (NOT bcm*),
*Then add the wlan/ndiswrapper to 'System->Administration->Network' (leave all options default, you can specify wep keys later),
*Do NOT try to activate it,
*Then edit the device to start when the system starts, and to be able to toggle on and off),
*Save settings and close the window,
*Go to System->Administration->Server Settings->Services,
*Click the boxes to enable the top two options (net NetworkManager, NetworkManagerDispatch),
*Click File->Save,
*Select the first NetworkManager service, click start,
*Do the same thing for the second NetworkManagerDispatch service,
*Go down to the 'Network' service (~= five clicks down on the scroll bar),
*Restart it,
*Terminal-> 'dhclient ndiswrapper'
*In the system tray, click on the networkManager,
*Select a wireless network,
*Enter your credentials (correctly; ASCII != HEX || Phrase)

If you can see your wlan device in the modprobe, and have removed the apropriate entries from the apropriate files, and you still don't have a wireless option, reboot.
I had to do alllllllllllllllllllll that ****, and then reboot.
When you're bootin up, at the progress screen hit 'alt + d' for details, and watch what it says when it get's to the 'wlan' part (right after eth0), and if it simply says 'Done', you're good.
If it doesn't say that, i've still had my device work, so i don't completely understand WHY my device is working sometimes, lmmfao, but it does, and i'm just happy that i can remember how to do this after a re-install.

This may not be the best way, but it's what got me working when this tutorial didn't work 100% for me (it's still a good tutorial none-the-less ;))

If i remember anything else relevant to this, i will update accordingly, but remember, if this doesn't work, i am definately NOT the person you want to ask for help, because i've only been using Fedora for about a week now, and i'm even less experienced than you are at it, so i could offer you no help beyond this little bit that i figured out (sorry).

Good luck, i know it was a pain in the ass for me too.
You are Awesome man....this worked exactly for me on my Compaq Presario R3000T CTO model. One thing though, When trying to connect to the network, you might want to watch you system log and when it says it's at Stage 2, Hit the wireless on/off button on your notebook. I had to actually cut it on for it to work. Until I hit the button, you kept just failing. Once again, thanks for the awesome tutorial. It should be stickied :) :cool: :)

[Vector]

Thanx, glad it helps. I know how it is to be new to linux, and nothing work, and no one's tutorials helping. It's stuff like that which drives people back to windows, so i like to help prevent that if possible ;)

[ronald.watson]

Upgrade to FC6 and once again the instructions worked perfectly! That's 2 successes out of 2 tries. No more futzing with NDISwrapper for me!

[Vector]

No more futzing with NDISwrapper for me!
You would think eh? Wait till you upgrade the kernel. You have to recompile and reinstall every time. If not, then it must just not like ME. I don't blame it though, i wouldn't like me either.

[ronald.watson]

Might be something in your system's config...'cause I've never had to do that when upgrading the kernel.....

[jbird80]

In case anyone else has been trying to figure this out bcw43xx will not work with the xen kernel

[Vector]

I've never even heard of the xen kernel, what is it?

[ronald.watson]

I've never even heard of the xen kernel, what is it?
xen isn't a kernel but a virtual machine monitor (like VMWare GSX/ESX). It's available for FC4, FC5 and FC6.

The official website is at http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/research/srg/netos/xen/

[jbird80]

Either way bcw43xx doesn't work in it. At least not with these instructions I reinstalled F6 with out virtualization and it worked fine.

[ronald.watson]

I have xen installed (although not configured) and it works fine for me.

[jbird80]

run

uname -rm

does your kernel version have "(xen) at the end?

[Darkmage]

$ uname -rm
2.6.18-1.2798.fc6xen i686

[robvnl]

Hi all. I have been looking around to solve the BCM43xx config problem. I discoverd that tipically the Airforce one 54g give all the problems.In dmesg it gives this version of the broadcom card:
bcm43xx driver
bcm43xx: Chip ID 0x4318, rev 0x2
i.e. it is a 4318 model. I am pretty sure that the ones in this thread who report "it works" do NOT have a 4318 card. I am depressed of it, because it seems not to work anyway, whatever you try. I found some answers in this thread: http://bcm43xx.spugna.org/index.php?topic=110.0
However: I am very curious if someone realy made specificaly the 4318 model working.
Please let it know. I am only interested in a working environment with this broadcom thing (lspci):
Broadcom Corporation BCM4318 [AirForce One 54g] 802.11g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 02)
I spent terrible much hours on it already. If i knew I did not buy this acer notebook, besides they said a intel wifi was in it, but not.

[Vector]

I am pretty sure that the ones in this thread who report "it works" do NOT have a 4318 card....
Please let it know. I am only interested in a working environment with this broadcom thing (lspci):
Well, don't be to sure about that:# lspci
02:03.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4318 [AirForce One 54g] 802.11g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 02)

If you get stuck, read some of my threads. Well, i guess i could be less lazy and go get the links for you...
Btw, the Acer driver was the one that i had initially used for my ndiswrapper, but now i use the one that came with my Dell. And you are correct, it does report itself under windows as being manufactured by Intel, but obviously it's not.

[Vector]

http://forums.fedoraforum.org/forum/showthread.php?t=126468 <-- that one has a couple linx that should help.

And in case i wasn't very clear in my above post, "don't be to sure", means that mine works fine.

[Vector]

http://forums.fedoraforum.org/forum/showthread.php?t=133884
That's a better link for you.

[robvnl]

Alex-Grim, thank you very much! I did not try ndiswrapper until now. It did not succeed with fw-cutter so I will follow your thread. One last question: when you do a
dmesg | grep -i "bcm43xx: Chip ID"
what do you get then...

[Vector]

I copied and pasted your command and got nothing back from it. I'm new, so i may not have understood what you wanted too.

[robvnl]

Sorry, dmesg has a certain length. So, the message may have dissapeared already. Please try as root user:
cat /var/log/messages | grep -i bcm | grep -i chip
MThx in advance....
Meanwhile I am studying your thread. First I have to resolve the i586 kernel while must have a i686 kernel issue.....

[robvnl]

Here is my story, it worked. Some problems remain, but it works. I use fc6 now and there is a architecture i685 vs i586 version problem that I first had to solve. See: http://forums.fedoraforum.org/forum/showthread.php?t=133485&page=2&pp=15

I created a proper place for the drivers: /usr/local/bcm4318
[robv@moon ~]$ ls -al /usr/local/bcm4318/
total 876
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Nov 11 00:10 .
drwxr-xr-x 12 root root 4096 Nov 11 00:10 ..
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 436020 Nov 11 00:10 bcmwl5.inf
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 424320 Nov 11 00:10 bcmwl5.sys

It is the original driver that came with the acer3692
I found them here:
/mnt/c/windows/system32/drivers/bcmwl5.sys
/mnt/c/windows/dev3/bcmwl5.inf

Install ndiswrapper

I downloaded ndiswrapper-1.28.tar.gz from http://sourceforge.net/projects/ndiswrapper

tar -zxvf ndiswrapper-1.28.tar.gz
cd ndiswrapper-1.28
make
here I have a nasty error:
*** WARNING: This kernel seems to use 4K stack size option (CONFIG_4KSTACKS); many Windows drivers will not work with th is option enabled. Disable CONFIG_4KSTACKS option, recompile and install kernel
ignored and run:
make install

ndiswrapper -i /usr/local/bcm4318/bcmwl5.inf

and then:
modprobe ndiswrapper
lsmod | grep ndiswrapper # check if loaded
service network restart

Check:
[root@moon ~]# ndiswrapper -l
installed drivers:
bcmwl5 driver installed, hardware (14E4:432A) present

[root@moon ~]# ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:16:D4:50:55:F5
inet addr:192.168.0.90 Bcast:192.168.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::216:d4ff:fe50:55f5/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:3458 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:3061 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:487550 (476.1 KiB) TX bytes:1983493 (1.8 MiB)
Interrupt:58

eth1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:16:CF:83:7C:91
inet addr:192.168.1.100 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::216:cfff:fe83:7c91/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:10 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:34 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:1136 (1.1 KiB) TX bytes:6596 (6.4 KiB)
Interrupt:66 Memory:d0002000-d0004000

I am happy to see the ip-address (192.168.1.100) was given. netstat -rn showed the default route to the router. A ping to an outside address was positive.

However, after a reboot
modprobe ndiswrapper # this can be easaly solved
BUT:
Activating eth1 (wireless) with network configuration ends up with
Error for wireless request SET Mode (8B06)
SET failed on device eth1 ; invalid argument
Determining IP information for eth1 ... failed; no link present. Check cable?

So it worked only once after install.
After some restarts it came up again. This worries.

To load the module at startup:
Edit /etc/modprobe.conf
add the entry:
alias eth1 ndiswrapper

reboot

the error SET Mode (8B06) appears constantly now.
it may have to do with the WEP encryption I use. I switched of MAC-address
binding in network manager and suddenly it works again.

Anyway, Alex-Grim is right. The BCM4318 works in ndiswrapper. Only to solve
the last problems. I will post my findings. Bed time now.

[robvnl]

Changed the line for eth1 in modprobe.conf:
alias wlan0 ndiswrapper
Blacklisted the old bcm43xx module:
cd /etc/modprobe.d
added the line "blacklist bcm43xx" in both files blacklist and blacklist-compat
Reconfigured the wireless part in network configurator using the wlan0 interface.
Reset the router
Reboot (I am lazy).

The link wlan0 comes up. After a while it stops functioning and I have to reset the router.
After the reset ifdown wlan0; ifup wlan0 and it works a while.
It is not very stable. That's a pitty, I'm not finished yet.

14-11-2006
Because ndiswrapper is unstable in fc6 and because of many other fc related problems I moved back to fc5.
ndiswrapper installed from the repositories (livna) and made the same config as in fc6. I had to use the bcmwl5.info and sys as is installed with the broadcom (ver 4) Others will not work.
With networkmanager it connects nice and the link remains active.
Only strange that it only works when I connect manualy with Knetworkmanager. The conventional ifup wlan0 does not work (check cable message).

[carlospro7]

Be sure you have a fully updated Fedora Core 5 system with the most recent kernel. (Do a "yum -y update" as root and then reboot when the update finishes.)

Go to ftp://ftp.support.acer-euro.com/notebook/aspire_3020_5020/driver/ and get ftp://ftp.support.acer-euro.com/notebook/aspire_3020_5020/driver/80211g.zip.

Unzip 80211g.zip. (Use the command "unzip 80211g.zip".) Do a "cp ./80211g/bcmwl5.sys ~/".

Install the fwcutter package from Fedora Extras by doing a "yum -y install bcm43xx-fwcutter" as root.

Extract the firmware from bcmwl5.sys by doing a "/usr/bin/bcm43xx-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware bcmwl5.sys" as root in the directory in which you saved bcmwl5.sys (in our case your home directory). You can verify that fwcutter extracted the firmware to /lib/firmware by doing a "ls /lib/firmware".

Set up Network Manger to automatically connect to your wireless and wired connections with the following commands, entering your root password as prompted after each command:su -c '/sbin/chkconfig --level 345 NetworkManager on'su -c '/sbin/chkconfig --level 345 NetworkManagerDispatcher on'su -c '/sbin/service NetworkManager start ; /sbin/service NetworkManagerDispatcher start'
Reboot your machine. The network manager icon will appear on your panel and you will be prompted to enter a gnome keyring password and your wireless network WPA key and other information.

Note: You may have to change your wireless router's network mode from G only to mixed in order to connect.

I followed these instructions but, I have no wireless. When went though these instructions everything went smoothly. I have the Network Manager working, but nowhere do I see the words 'wireless' All I see is my wired connection.
I don't why that is, anyone? and I still don't think my card is being detected.

[robvnl]

Please read this thread. this broadcom type wireless seems to function only witn ndiswrapper. This is exhaustive described here.

[Vector]

I'm a noob, but it sounds to me as if you may have skipped a few steps, and the device has not been properly configured, and therefore is not listed. Click my profile and look for threads started by me for NdisWrapper and FC6, read them well, and make sure to follow all directions.

Better yet, here's a good one to read: http://forums.fedoraforum.org/forum/showthread.php?t=133884

I may actually take the time to make a Flash tutorial on how to install this, if i can get Captivate to work under Wine... I just don't know where i'd HOST this flash tutorial, as my website is slow right now (using an old machine temporarily), and the forums would not permit me to attach it...

[carlospro7]

I finally got it working! ndiswrapper did the trick for me. I couldn't just install it using the yum command "No matches found for ndiswrapper" . I had to manually install it and somewhat followed your instructions Alex. I also found this

http://forums.fedoraforum.org/forum/showthread.php?t=133485&page=1&pp=15 (post #9)

thread where neilloffhagen, posted his results. I followed as he/she did, and it worked for me.

Things i downloaded:

ndiswrapper 1.27
from
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ndiswrapper/
I tried 1.28 first, but it didn't quite make it. So I tried 1.27 and so it worked as in thread. I still got that 4KSTACK warning, but it worked. (look at the thread above if you don't know what i mean.)

Also
driver from manufacturers website (windows driver).


** Oh one extra thing i had to do was add this line

alias wlan0 ndiswrapper

in the /etc/modprobe.conf fiile
for the device to appear in the network configuration

Good luck to anyone with this problem.

[Vector]

You must not have the proper repos if yum didn't find ndiswrapper. You need to add livna.repo at least, to be able to get any extra stuff that doesn't come with fedora-extras. If you don't have any repos that DON'T start with 'fedora', then read my little HOWTO called 'yum for dummies', or something along that line, or you can go to the apropriate sites to get the repos.

[carlospro7]

You must not have the proper repos if yum didn't find ndiswrapper. You need to add livna.repo at least, to be able to get any extra stuff that doesn't come with fedora-extras. If you don't have any repos that DON'T start with 'fedora', then read my little HOWTO called 'yum for dummies', or something along that line, or you can go to the apropriate sites to get the repos.

Yeah, i figured that out after I manually installed the ndiswrapper. But i didn't try to do it, I had it working, and that was enough for me, but i'll look at your HOWTO on yum. Im interested.

[ronald.watson]

Try using the solution in this thread it really works well for me. In fact I'm using the wlan to send this email now!

And yes to jbird, it is the xen kernel as per uname -rm

[ajamison]

Will these instructions work for FC6.

My FC6 default install detects the wireless card and configures it but it can not establish a link with the router. I know it is not the router as my other Win laptop is 2 inches away and it connects no prob

[ronald.watson]

Will these instructions work for FC6.

My FC6 default install detects the wireless card and configures it but it can not establish a link with the router. I know it is not the router as my other Win laptop is 2 inches away and it connects no prob
That's not ENTIRELY true. Check your routers broadcast configuration. Chances are high it's only broadcasting on 802.11g. For some reason, probably because FC uses windows drivers inside of a wrapper, it seems to work best on 802.11b networks. If so, set your router's configuration to 802.11b/g or it may say mixed.

[ajamison]

My router is not in G only mode i just checked

however i can still not get my laptop to link to the router. Should i try to disable the internal driver and try one of the methodes above? Or do i need to do something else to make this work for FC6

[robvnl]

Indeed a good idea to check router settings. But, I had the same simtoms with this awful broadcom. The connection did not establish or just for 10 minutes and the link was dropped, not to be able to repair again. Now it seems to be stable since I switched back to fc5 with ndiswrapper from the repos and the driver as installed in windos (that must work). I switch it on and off using networkmanager. The last problem that remains is that ifup wlan0 does not succeed (during boot nice to have), it only works manually with knetworkmanager.

[ronald.watson]

Can you connect via cable?

[ronald.watson]

Try setting the router in b only mode

[Darkmage]

Will these instructions work for FC6.

My FC6 default install detects the wireless card and configures it but it can not establish a link with the router. I know it is not the router as my other Win laptop is 2 inches away and it connects no prob

Post the output of this command from a terminal
ls /lib/firmware

[Vector]

Try setting the router in b only mode
I'm not going to say that this is wrong, because i have heard from other people that this is the only way to get it to work. I hope that you don't have to resort to using B only...

Either way, i'm unsubscribing to this thread, because you who are still having problems, have problems beyond my ability to help you, so i can be of no use here, and do not need to keep getting notifications about this. So if any of you decide that you DO want to ask ME something about this (which will probably be pointless), then PM me.

Seeya - i'm out.

[ajamison]

Can you connect via cable?
Yes it works fine with a cable connected

[ajamison]

Post the output of this command from a terminal
ls /lib/firmware
I used the fwcutter and now the network manager detects all wireless networks within range however when i try to enter my WEP key it does not connect.

I have tried to disable wireless security to see if connectivity is there. However I can not even connect to an unsecure network.

BTW here is the output from ls /lib/firmware


[andy@localhost ~]$ ls /lib/firmware
bcm43xx_initval01.fw bcm43xx_initval06.fw bcm43xx_microcode2.fw
bcm43xx_initval02.fw bcm43xx_initval07.fw bcm43xx_microcode4.fw
bcm43xx_initval03.fw bcm43xx_initval08.fw bcm43xx_microcode5.fw
bcm43xx_initval04.fw bcm43xx_initval09.fw bcm43xx_pcm4.fw
bcm43xx_initval05.fw bcm43xx_initval10.fw bcm43xx_pcm5.fw
[andy@localhost ~]$


U should note i extracted these firmware files using fwcutter from the bcmwl5.sys file

Is their something I am missing?

Additionaly I am using a 64bit WEP Hex key my router is set to accept both G and B connections. I do not have a way to disable the g side on the router

[robvnl]

Ajamison: please read this thread a little better. With fwcutter your chipset on this particular broadcom will not work. Refer to the link I posted earlier. With ndiswrapper it will work. See the postings earlier.
success!

[ajamison]

I have tried the ndiswrapper and it just errors out i am not even able to get the networks to be visible

[robvnl]

did you use the windos drivers that came with windos at this notebook? those where the only drivers that did work for me.
Please check the following and look at the file size (ls -l):
-rwxr-xr-x 1 robv robv 436020 Nov 8 21:05 bcmwl5.inf
-rwxr-xr-x 1 robv robv 424320 Nov 8 21:04 bcmwl5.sys
Furthermore, it sounds stupid, but is the wireless switched on. I have a switch at the front of the notebook and it happened that it was off. When you follow the directions as listed at http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/mediawiki/index.php/Installation#Install_Windows_driver
it should work...

[Vector]

Also, like rob said, even if you don't have a physical 'switch' you still have keyboard switched to turn your wireless off. My Dell Latitude has the blue 'Fn' (function?) key, you it hold down and press another key with blue on it, and it will do the apropriate hardware shortcut, bypassing any software (OS included) settings. I made the mistake of hitting <Fn><F2> once, and for the life of me couldn't figure out why my wireless wouldn't work until i called Dell, and was listening to their 'on hold' messages that they keep repeating while you wait, and it said to check that, and i was like 'DUH, i remember hitting that earlier to see what it did!'. I know, i'm a 'genius', lmmfao ;)

[ajamison]

I will check that but i am pretty sure it is on

[ZingoZanger]

Thank you very much for this information - worked like a charm on my laptop with a PCMCIA BCM4318 card under FC6.

Zingo.

[tinti]

where or how can I get the /lib/firmware/bcm43xx***.fw files?

[robvnl]

you need fw-cutter, however, this was not successfully in my case. I have it 100% working with ndiswrapper (fc5). See the thread above.

[ZingoZanger]

tinti:

if you follow the OP's instructions, you will have all the fw files. Just have faith!

robvnl:

yeah, tried ndiswrapper but that method froze my system solid. Obviously mileage varies on getting the cards running - but it's not too destructive to try one then the other.

Zingo.

[tinti]

Working now :-) with my Siemens Gigaset PCI Card 54:
00:14.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4306 802.11b/g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 03)
Subsystem: Unknown device 02fa:3011
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 64, IRQ 225
Memory at ec000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8K]


I copied the the file bcmwl5.sys from my running XP and used bcm43xx-fwcutter-005 to create the .fw files. Copied them to my /lib/firmware dir and configured the network using NetworkManager.

First test succesful after 5 mins. No I will go to reboot and hope that it works again ;)

Thanks for this great thread, Guys.

tinti

[tinti]

Last night I recognized a problem during data transmission. After ~2 hour of uptime I had a pulsed connection. I looked a the system monitor and I could see that for one second I had full data transmission and for another second 0% data transmission and so on. Every second changed from transmission to none and back. My download speed was also like this. Is this a hardware bug or software bug?

[jtravnick]

Well finly got mine working I think. Its the broadcom BCM4318 AirForce One. The only thing I'm running into is to get it to work I have to open Network Configuration and Activate it to get it to work, if I try to click on the icon up in the panel I have two bottons one says Wired Network the other under Wireless Network says linksys if I click on linksys nothing happens.

Also now I have a new file and folder in my home folder do I need these and is this where there suposed to be or did I do something wrong?

Jim

[Dimoutlook]

As a first time user of linux this was the easiest thing to get working, on my Aspire 3003 WLCI, thanks for the great guide

Dimoutlook

[rvs1st]

sir my presario v2000 laptop wireless-radio turned on. but how can i fix the the mode or ssi channel rate hex? i just thought of just scanning for networks available then just connect. any updates would do.

[kikker46]

Be sure you have a fully updated Fedora Core 5 system with the most recent kernel. (Do a "yum -y update" as root and then reboot when the update finishes.)

Go to ftp://ftp.support.acer-euro.com/notebook/aspire_3020_5020/driver/ and get ftp://ftp.support.acer-euro.com/notebook/aspire_3020_5020/driver/80211g.zip.

Unzip 80211g.zip. (Use the command "unzip 80211g.zip".) Do a "cp ./80211g/bcmwl5.sys ~/".

Install the fwcutter package from Fedora Extras by doing a "yum -y install bcm43xx-fwcutter" as root.

Extract the firmware from bcmwl5.sys by doing a "/usr/bin/bcm43xx-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware bcmwl5.sys" as root in the directory in which you saved bcmwl5.sys (in our case your home directory). You can verify that fwcutter extracted the firmware to /lib/firmware by doing a "ls /lib/firmware".

Set up Network Manger to automatically connect to your wireless and wired connections with the following commands, entering your root password as prompted after each command:su -c '/sbin/chkconfig --level 345 NetworkManager on'su -c '/sbin/chkconfig --level 345 NetworkManagerDispatcher on'su -c '/sbin/service NetworkManager start ; /sbin/service NetworkManagerDispatcher start'
Reboot your machine. The network manager icon will appear on your panel and you will be prompted to enter a gnome keyring password and your wireless network WPA key and other information.

Note: You may have to change your wireless router's network mode from G only to mixed in order to connect.
Only 11 MB is supported with this post :'(, how to addapt to 54 MB/s ?
I'm not using ndiswrapper, but the other method. when I look for the connection information only 11 MB's is in the description :(

Kikker46

[jtravnick]

I am also only getting 11Mbps showing in FC6 so I booted xp and checked my speed there it is reporting 54Mbps.

On a side note for those having problems getting it to work when they use networkmanager make sure you go into System Administration Network and under Edit for your wireless have Allow all users to enable and disable the device checked.
What I've done is unchecked both the wireless and hardwire network card to activate when computer starts and checked allow all users for both of them. That way I can decide what device I want to use at the time.

Jim

[kikker46]

I guess if you use the Broadcom driver you can max only use 11 MB/s. ... ndiswrapper every speed, ... will try to use that for now ;)

Kikker46

[ronald.watson]

Actually ndiswrapper (and for that matter, fwcutter) uses the same Broadcom driver that XP uses. The real reason is that for some reason the Broadcom driver in ndiswrapper only works on 802.11b whereas in Windows, it works on 802.11b/g. So you may also need to set your wireless router to 802.11b/g or mixed.

[Tellik]

Didn't know where else to put this, figured this was as good a place as any. After much effort I have finally gotten my Broadcom 4318 wireless working. This message is provided for any one else having the same problems I did.

A little history: I had it up and running in FC5 first with ndiswrapper and later with bcm43xx. Worked fine with the exception that periodically I would lose the connection and it was a pain to bring it back up with out re-booting but could be done (this was using the bcm43xx - in reading I think the problem was related to the power issues with the driver). Then I upgraded to FC6, actually I did a fresh install. I initially tried the bcm43xx native linux driver. It seemed to recognize my card, the wireless indicator light on my laptop would go active when I would try to connect but I kept getting the error (something like) "Can't find ... check cable"

I tried every trick I could find out there. I used variouse sources for the driver. I tried 32 and 64 bit (got desprate so I treid both, I am actually running 64-bit). I manually edited the script files. Upgraded everything I could think of. Nothing seemed to work. Everytime it would find my card, let me set it up, and then not connect. The one key thing I noticed was /sbin/iwconfig never saw the Access Point.

So I switched to ndiswrapper. I went through all of the how-to's concerning this card and ndiswrapper and I could never get it to power on my card. I even "again" manually edited script files to no avail. I tried several kernal boot parameters and they didn't help either.

Everything I read said that I should be up. I was up in FC5 so what was wrong? Well I never actually figured out what was wrong. Instead I got even more deporate and I re-installed FC6.

Now to hopefully save some of you the problem I had. Imidietly after freshly installing FC6 a new, I ran through the steps to blacklist bcm43xx. I did this for two reasons. First, it was the first thing I tried last time and it failed. Secondly my reading lead me to understand the bcm43xx driver still needs work. It has power issues (distance to router), and it can only connect at 11 MB/s were-as ndiswrapper is suppose to be able to do 54 MB/s.

So I blacklisted bcm43xx, removed it from system-Networks, and from /etc/modprobe.conf
Then rebooted. Worth noteing I think is that I performed NO updates to FC6 prior to or at this point. That came later...
Once up again I went through the steps listed here and elsewhere for enabling ndiswrapper (By the way, I had used the nifty FC6 feature of installing ndiswrapper from livna during the initial instalation).
And I ran into some problems:
First, I couldn't run ndiswrapper -l, I can't remember the error but I basically made a soft link to modeprobe in my /bin directory so that I would not have to put /sbin in my path (if there is a secruity issue I should be aware of doing this please let me know)
Secondly, when I would run modprobe ndiswrapper it would fail (agian sorry I don't remember the exact error I'm writting this after the fact and I forgot to take notes :(

So at this point I updated the kernel and a few things I thought were Kernel related such as the video drivers, basically a very limited update.

re-booted, re-ran modprobe ndiswrapper, and no more errors.
At this point I went into System-Network and ran the wi-fi setup for wlan0 / ndiswrapper. Activiated it and it came right up :D

I then played with Network manager and it worked great as well. Additional Note, I have not tried WAP yet, so I don't know if that will work or not.

One more side note. As soon as /sbin/iwconf was able to identfy a device my access point was visible and stayed visible through out the rest of the setup and beyond.

Then I finished the update and it's still going well.

I hope this helps.

[jamesrw]

Thank you very much for this information - worked like a charm on my laptop with a PCMCIA BCM4318 card under FC6.

Zingo.

ditto
[presario v2000z amd64-ml30]

[sleetm]

i followed all the instructions. im on fc6 and my wifi light is now lit up, but how do i configure my broadcam card? I am sure i have to add it to the list of network devices but the only broadcam listed there is tigon3. any help?

[kmbsar]

I am running FC6 w/ a Broadcom BCM4318 wireless card. I attempted to get it to work using the code in post #9, however, these are the problems that came across after a couple attempts.

[root@localhost ~]# ndiswrapper -m
module configuration contains directive install pci:v000014E4d00004318sv00000311sd00001468bc*sc*i* /sbin/modprobe ndiswrapper
;you should delete that at /usr/sbin/ndiswrapper line 691, <MODPROBE> line 38.
module configuration contains directive install pci:v000014E4d00004318sv00000312sd00001468bc*sc*i* /sbin/modprobe ndiswrapper
;you should delete that at /usr/sbin/ndiswrapper line 691, <MODPROBE> line 39.
module configuration contains directive install pci:v000014E4d00004318sv*sd*bc*sc*i* /sbin/modprobe ndiswrapper
;you should delete that at /usr/sbin/ndiswrapper line 691, <MODPROBE> line 40.
modprobe config already contains alias directive


[root@localhost ~]# dmesg | grep ndiswrapper
ndiswrapper version 1.25 loaded (preempt=no,smp=yes)
ndiswrapper (check_nt_hdr:153): kernel is 64-bit, but Windows driver is not 64-bit;bad magic: 010B
ndiswrapper (load_sys_files:215): couldn't prepare driver 'bcmwl5'
ndiswrapper (load_wrap_driver:120): loadndiswrapper failed (65280); check system log for messages from 'loadndisdriver'
usbcore: registered new driver ndiswrapper

What can I do to get my card working? Thanks

[beissemj]

A lot of people are having trouble with their BCM43xx cards (obviously). The developers at Gentoo are working on resolving (http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-409194.html) the problem, however, they are far from complete.

What it basically boils down to is this. If you have a broadcom bcm43xx card that is of not of an airport extreme type, then your card will work natively under linux no problem. However, you will be limited to 11MB/s (which is actually the case no matter what card you have when using the native linux driver).

If you have 432x and 433x cards (N PHY cards), then you are out of luck because they are not supported and haven't even been spec'd yet.

4309 cards are not supported at the time due to issues with the A PHY.

4311 or 4312 work but only under 2.6.18.1 and require a kernel patch. (ftp://lwfinger.dynalias.org/patches/patch_2.6.18.1_for_PCI-E)

4320 is actually a 4306 in Master which also is not supported due to a SoftMAC issue.

4318 still has transmission power problems.

If you want to use the 4318 your best bet is to use a non stock kernel, as people seem to have the best luck with kernels >= 2.6.19. (Although some people, have said they have no problems what-so-ever with it). The problem with all of this is due to problems in reverse assembling the current drivers. The devel's have absolutely no documentation, and they are writing drivers based upon making changes and then just "seeing what happens". The problem is further complicated by the fact that the kernel is trying to switch from ieee80211 softmac to the new d80211, and the current bcm43xx is based on the ieee80211.

(The ieee80211 softmac layer is intended to be a software MAC layer complementing ieee80211 layer in Linux with protocol management features that a lot of hardware no longer does but instead hands off to software. It is intended to handle scanning, assocation and similar tasks.
The ieee80211softmac layer is provided as an extra kernel module so that the functionality is not linked in when it isn't needed.)

There also seems to be a problem with udev/hotplug loading extracted firmware correctly at the moment. This should be fixed really soon, and shouldn't apply to FC6 users, however it might.

Which driver you are currently trying to use, and which firmware version (you should use v3.xhttp://boredklink.googlepages.com/wl_apsta.o) also affect your success rate with the device.

If you decide to custom build a kernel then you'll need the following in your kernel:
Networking -->
<M> Generic IEEE 802.11 Networking Stack
[x] Enable full debugging output
<M> IEEE 802.11 WEP encryption (802.1x)
<M> IEEE 802.11i CCMP support
<M> IEEE 802.11i TKIP encryption
<M> Software MAC add-on to the IEEE 802.11 networking stack
[x] Enable full debugging output
Device Drivers --> Network device support --> Wireless LAN drivers (non-hamradio) &
Wireless Extensions
<M> Broadcom BCM43xx wireless support
[x] Broadcom BCM43xx debugging (RECOMMENDED)


Now you're going to need to extract the firmware and (re)load the driver:
# bcm43xx-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware name_of_fw_file
# rmmod bcm43xx
# modprobe bcm43xx
if that doesn't work check dmesg and see what the problem is.

Now bring up the device:
ifup eth#
iwlist eth# scan
iwconfig eth# channel #
iwconfig eth# enc XXXX-XXXX-XX (Optional, for WEP)
iwconfig eth# essid "AP_ESSID"
(Where obviously the #,X, and AP_ESSID are filled in by you.)

Now you should be good to go. I hear people talking about some wireless manager plugin for gnome, and i'm not sure how that works, but i would imagine if you can't get the device to come up you probably need to do ifdown eth# and then connect through that manager.

Good luck!

[kmbsar]

I'd really rather not build a new kernel, so am I just SOL?

[jtravnick]

kmbsar
No you are not out of luck unless there is more than one kind of 44318 like one that is not airforce one. My laptop has the BCM4318 AirForce One in it and I use wireless all the time. I did the cutter route, and it works great for me. Just follow the steps outlined and you should be fine. About the only thing I might think about doing first is remove everything that you have done so far since there not working anyway.

Jim

[beissemj]

jtravnick: what kernel and firmware are you using? Also what speed are you connecting at and are you using WPA/WEP? The majority of cases it seems with the 4318 are problems with stability. People have all kinds of problem if they are even more than a few feet away from their router.

could you post the relevant output of
#lspci -vv -x
should look something like this:
02:03.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4306 802.11b/g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 02)
Subsystem: Dell TrueMobile 1300 WLAN Mini-PCI Card
Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR+ FastB2B-
Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
Latency: 32
Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 5
Region 0: Memory at fafee000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8K]
Capabilities: <access denied>
00: e4 14 20 43 06 01 10 00 02 00 80 02 00 20 00 00
10: 00 e0 fe fa 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
20: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 28 10 01 00
30: 00 00 00 00 40 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0b 01 00 00


kmbsar: you are not out of luck as you could always try ndiswrapper

[jtravnick]

beissemj in replay to your request the return on #lspci -vv -x is as follows:

00:0b.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4318 [AirForce One 54g] 802.11g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 02)
Subsystem: AMBIT Microsystem Corp. TravelMate 2410
Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B-
Status: Cap- 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
Latency: 64
Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 217
Region 0: Memory at e2000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8K]
00: e4 14 18 43 06 00 00 00 02 00 80 02 00 40 00 00
10: 00 00 00 e2 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
20: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 68 14 12 03
30: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 04 01 00 00

[root@localhost ~]# uname -r
2.6.18-1.2869.fc6
Though I have been using the wireless with what ever the kernel was that FC6 came with. Have not been having problems with range eather use it anywhere in the house I feel like. course its not realy a very big house though. Also range realy wasnt very good even in windows. when I'm on the opeset side of the house from the router even in windows it is low.

As for setting it up I used this walk through to set it up. About the only thing I wonder about is if I should have used su - instead of just plan su since now I have some files and a folder in my users home that I did not have before.

Jim

[Tellik]

To anyone having problems installing bcm43xx. I have had very mixed results. In FC5 it would not work at first, then with a kernel upgrade (I'm sorry I forget which one) it loaded itself by default and after I followed the cutter directions it worked fine, without Network Manager or wpa_supplicant, I could not get either to work, especially with WPA enabled. So at that point I would use System/Network to activate and deactivate or command line /sbin/ifup wlan0.

With FC6 I was completely unsuccessful in getting bcm43xx to work at all. It would appear to activate my radio (as in the little light on my laptop would turn on) but it was never able to connect. After much effort I had messed things up sufficiently that I could also not get ndiswrapper up and running. Since I discovered the tentative nature of this driver while researching what else I could try, I decided to just re-install FC6 and try ndiswrapper from a fresh installation. It worked perfectly and I have had no problems since. It ever works with Network Manager with WPA enabled and broadcast turned off.

I'm all for supporting native drivers and try it first, but if you can not get it to work within the first few tries, my recommendation is to use ndiswrapper. Note that it took a fresh install to get ndiswrapper working for me, but once I blacklisted bcm43xx and went through the other steps it worked (If you do a fresh install you will probably have to upgrade the kernel for ndiswrapper to work properly. Also it's easiest if you soft link modprob to /bin or somehow get it into your path, ndiswrapper uses it).

Hope it helps.

[kmbsar]

kmbsar
No you are not out of luck unless there is more than one kind of 44318 like one that is not airforce one. My laptop has the BCM4318 AirForce One in it and I use wireless all the time. I did the cutter route, and it works great for me. Just follow the steps outlined and you should be fine. About the only thing I might think about doing first is remove everything that you have done so far since there not working anyway.

Jim

I finally got to another point, I did the cutter route. After completing the whole route, in network manager it is now saying wireless netowrks, and I do have the AirForce One card. My wireless light on my computer is now on, but I still am unable to locate or connect to any of the networks that do exist. I appreciate all the help I can get.

[beissemj]

I'm trying ndiswrapper out, and I find I have trouble with the network manager, also. When I boot, my wireless gets an ip address, and says I'm connected, but the network manager says I'm not, and I can't get online. If, however, I specify my wireless network manually then my wireless will work with ndiswrapper. So if the network manager isn't connecting try this:# ifdown eth1 ; iwconfig eth1 essid your_network ; ifup eth1 ;
(the network manager will say you are offline still but you shouldn't be)

[kmbsar]

So now my wireless card is picking up the local networks, but is unable to connect to networks that it should be able to, any ideas?

[willoconley]

Good how to. Thanks SMFinley. Much simpler than what I was trying to make it be.
WPA doesn't work and reception is not as good as in windows but far from unusable.

Is their any documentation for WPA_Supplicant? Is that package what I need to use WPA?

[bektorkhan]

Hi I will list some pitfalls..

I've made it work on my Acer 5024 Wlmi bcm4318.. FC6 2.6.19-1.2895 i686 thanks to Rag..
(with ndiswrapper(bcmwl5.sys), acerhk))

If it doesn't work check this:

using bcm43xx module
-Have you extracted the firmware with bcm43xx-fwcutter from the Windows driver?

want to try ndiswrapper driver:

http://forums.fedoraforum.org/forum/showpost.php?p=674695&postcount=67


-Is the Radio really on? The Wireless should flash or be lit!

If you see this in system log (FC /var/log/messages):
bcm43xx: Radio turned on
bcm43xx: ASSERTION FAILED (radio_attenuation < 10) at: drivers/net/wireless/bcm43xx/bcm43xx_phy.c:1485:bcm43xx_find_lopair()

No your wireless is disabled, and the button on your laptop is sw controlled, you need acerhk module or other tool for your laptop

http://viktor.podzone.org:8080/acerhk-0.5.34.tar.bz2 follow instructions there! read INSTALL

For other Laptops I have no info please comment? And what models of Acer it works for?

Then..

# depmod -a
# modprobe acerhk autowlan=1 poll=0 force_series=5020 verbose=3 usedritek=1

Put it in /etc/modprobe.conf if you wan't it at boot: alias acerhk acerhk autowlan=1 poll=0 force_series=5020 verbose=3 usedritek=1

And you test it, the led should flash until the network is up then it should be lit.

And enabling the wireless led works:
echo 1 > /proc/driver/acerhk/wirelessled ( echo 0 will turn it off )

There is also the mailled: echo 1 > /proc/driver/acerhk/led
And blueled but I don't have Bluetooth, so it doesn't work for me.

I run NetworkManager to control eth0/wlan0 and it switches network perfect. WPA-PSK TKIP
All interfaces should be down on boot.

I someone has more info/skills out there, there should be some summary sticky Howto Wireless for FC6.

Please comment/correct this

[madmax08]

So, everything works for me except for the

"Unzip 80211g.zip. (Use the command "unzip 80211g.zip".) Do a "cp ./80211g/bcmwl5.sys ~/"."

even the stuff at the end i have running, its just that..

HELP!!

[Ex_HW_Hack]

On a fresh load of FC 6 on a Dell Inspiron B130 (yes its a dog - but its my dog) --- I followed the original instructions from the first post -- no hitches - just worked -- THANKS FOR YOUR POST !! In fact I'm wireless right now :D

I'm somewhere between noob and dangerous in my Linux experience -- I think the big things on getting this to work is
- a clean install
- follow the instructions - know when to be in root mode or user mode
- And the one thing out of your control is if your laptop manufacturer did something strange in eihter the 4318 design or BIOS (that programs the 4318) you could be screwed ---- or need a BIOS update

Good luck 'yall -- keep trying------ I've got mine to work with both Ubuntu and no FC6 -- I like FC6 !! :) :cool:

[Jeff Sadowski]

broken links found driver files here

ftp://ftp.support.acer-euro.com/notebook/aspire_3020/driver

[bubazoo]

anyone know if these Broadcom BCM4318 drivers work for the

Compaq Presario V5305WM laptop as well?

Thats the laptop Walmart had on sale back in November 2006 for $398. couldn't pass that deal up! LOL

according to ispci I have the


Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4318 [AirForce One 54g] 802.11g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 02)


wireless internal NIC.

I was able to get the ndiswrapper instructions for the Broadcom BCM4318 on Fedora Mobile to work, in Gnome, but, I'm not too crazy about ndiswrapper, because it only works while in a Gnome session, AND I'd like to have internet access in XFCE and in runlevel 3 as well.

I mean, I'd like to also get NetworkManager to work in XFCE as well. or at least connect to my WPA_Personal protected wireless access point

[Jeff Sadowski]

ndiswrapper works outside of gnome i use to use it with the commandline only

[hernol]

Well after several times I have removed everything related to bcm43xx and installed ndiswrapper. Works quite well, but one thing.

Everytime I start the machine (VAIO laptop) I have to modprobe ndiswrapper (I do have an alias in the modprobe.conf), then I do "service network restart" (because I have network manager running, which detects the wifi connections, but doesn't connect), and while it's disconnecting everything I click on the network-manager icon and it does connect.

Bit annoying, but it works quite well for me.
What I really would want to have is the ndiswrapper moduler loaded when I restart... It's one step more....

Hope this helps someone.

[sideways]

Well after several times I have removed everything related to bcm43xx and installed ndiswrapper. Works quite well, but one thing.

Everytime I start the machine (VAIO laptop) I have to modprobe ndiswrapper (I do have an alias in the modprobe.conf), then I do "service network restart" (because I have network manager running, which detects the wifi connections, but doesn't connect), and while it's disconnecting everything I click on the network-manager icon and it does connect.

Bit annoying, but it works quite well for me.
What I really would want to have is the ndiswrapper moduler loaded when I restart... It's one step more....

Hope this helps someone.

You need to configure wlan0 to start on boot, so either edit /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-wlan0, and add or amend line 'ONBOOT=yes', or do it through the system-config-network gui (it's a check box in the properties for wlan0)

[ajamison]

You know something i had Fedora installed on laptop once as my main OS but i just for the life of me could not get this card to work using ndiswrapper or later in FC 6 the fwcutter tool.

I frantically switched distros often hearing that one over the other had better support for wireless cards and let me tell you the closest i ever got was getting any distro to detect the card read the wireless networks within range but they would NEVER connect weather i entered the correct WEP or not.

I still wanted to use my laptop and Linux so I commissioned a old PC i had lieing around and used that as my linux box and sadly reverted to Windows for my laptop. :(

The point of this rant is to show you that Broadcom is not now nor I think ever going to embrace the linux community and just suck it up and release at least the source code so Linux devels can make a *nix driver.

Ok enough of that if you get this card to work in a Dell Inspirion 630M please please please post your steps for getting it to work here so i can ditch windows on my laptop (although i may have a new laptop by then and just give this one to my wife she loves windows anyway ;) ).

[pelasgian]

nice guide, just to add (for those of you who don't have bcmwl5.sys that you can have it from here: http://people.zoy.org/~hpreg/wifi/bcmwl5.sys

In FC6 which had almost everything there, but not the microcodes, I did a:
yum install bcm43xx-fwcutter
bcm43xx-fwcutter 0-w /lib/firmware/ ~/Desktop/bcmwl5.sys
rmmod bcm43xx
modprobe bcm43xx
ifup eth1

and yasu Maria :D

[draktrax]

well folks, this has gotten my goat!!!!
Ive followed the instructions, reinstalled (twice) and this f*****g card will not activate.
are there explicit instructions for FC6 whereby my hand can be held thru the process?
I can see the interface but, it "doesn't seem to be present" when i try to activate it.
AAAAAAARGH!!!!!
what drives me bats is that i'm not so much the newbie!

[Desas]

Hi draktrax I've experienced the same with my laptop a fujitsu siemens (amilo 1655g ) where you need an additional module simulating a real button on the computer. First it was a pain figuring this out but now i actually found a page with an rpm for my card :D so i guess i was lucky :D . Ndiswrapper or the native driver might be properly set up as it was with my laptop the issues might concern your specific computer. Still a bit newb here myself but I wish you luck. Btw there are som nice guides on networking on fedorasolved.org

[Stian1979]

Kinfosenter list my broadcom, but in my network tool's it won't show next to eth0.

It did in FC6.

In networkmanager it's present.
I can not find it under network tools with or without the broadcom module installed.

[draktrax]

It seems I get closer each time I try so, I'm not getting frustrated yet. (RIGHT!!!)
I have used the "cutter" method and have had some success. The problem I'm facing now is
in Wireless Device Configuration: The "Auto obtain address setting" is grayed out and of course
cannot be ticked. Although I may get ticked if there is ... sorry, just ranting.
Any solutions?
FYI the interface is active in the net config but, in net device control it will not. probably due to
the address glitch?
As always, HELP! is appreciated.

[Prd@Tr]

Sorry, completely forgot about this one...
I would NOT recommend using the fwcutter, it F*CKED my system UP.
Even multiple restarts wouldn't clear whatever it did, i had to reinstall.
BUT, this may have been an isolated incident, who knows...

Ok, what i did was a fresh install of the system.
But if you do the following it might help:
*Uninstall the ndis wrapper that you already tried to install (ndiswrapper -e bcmwl5),
*Go into 'Network' settings and delete any device that says it's wireless (on the FIRST tab, NOT the second one),
*Go into the /etc/modprobe.d/ and add 'blacklist bcm43xx' to both the blacklist docs (not sure if you REALLY need the 2nd one),
*Go into /etc/ and open 'modprobe.config' and remove any line that has 'alias eth1 bcm43xx', or any 'bcm43xx' line at all,
*Reboot.

After logging back in:
*First install the ndiswrapper (yum ndiswrapper),
*Then install the driver (ndiswrapper -i /root/Desktop/wherever/the/hell/you/put/this/bcmwl5.inf)
*Terminal-> modprobe ,
*Terminal-> ndiswrapper -m ,
*Terminal-> dmesg to see if it says anything about the device wlan or ndiswrapper (NOT bcm*),
*Then add the wlan/ndiswrapper to 'System->Administration->Network' (leave all options default, you can specify wep keys later),
*Do NOT try to activate it,
*Then edit the device to start when the system starts, and to be able to toggle on and off),
*Save settings and close the window,
*Go to System->Administration->Server Settings->Services,
*Click the boxes to enable the top two options (net NetworkManager, NetworkManagerDispatch),
*Click File->Save,
*Select the first NetworkManager service, click start,
*Do the same thing for the second NetworkManagerDispatch service,
*Go down to the 'Network' service (~= five clicks down on the scroll bar),
*Restart it,
*Terminal-> 'dhclient ndiswrapper'
*In the system tray, click on the networkManager,
*Select a wireless network,
*Enter your credentials (correctly; ASCII != HEX || Phrase)

If you can see your wlan device in the modprobe, and have removed the apropriate entries from the apropriate files, and you still don't have a wireless option, reboot.
I had to do alllllllllllllllllllll that ****, and then reboot.
When you're bootin up, at the progress screen hit 'alt + d' for details, and watch what it says when it get's to the 'wlan' part (right after eth0), and if it simply says 'Done', you're good.
If it doesn't say that, i've still had my device work, so i don't completely understand WHY my device is working sometimes, lmmfao, but it does, and i'm just happy that i can remember how to do this after a re-install.

This may not be the best way, but it's what got me working when this tutorial didn't work 100% for me (it's still a good tutorial none-the-less ;))

If i remember anything else relevant to this, i will update accordingly, but remember, if this doesn't work, i am definately NOT the person you want to ask for help, because i've only been using Fedora for about a week now, and i'm even less experienced than you are at it, so i could offer you no help beyond this little bit that i figured out (sorry).

Good luck, i know it was a pain in the ass for me too.
hey alexi i did whatever u tld to instal bcm4318 ndiswrapper but my network manager is unable to see wlan0/ndiswrapper as wireless device......also my wi-fi light is not getting on
after dmesg it is showing ndiswrapper installled..what to do