Broadcom BCM4306 (B43) Driver Issues in F11

[Dsus4]

Hey there.

I've recently updated to F11, and the first problem I encountered was that my wireless connection that utilized WPA personal (tkip) no longer functioned as it used to. In desperation I uninstalled the drivers and tried to reinstall with Broadcom's new set of propriety drivers, which failed.

Now that I try to reinstall my b43 drivers, I get this error when modprobing b43:

FATAL: Module b43 not found.

I was following instructions from this (http://fedoramobile.org/fc-wireless/bcm43xx-yum-extras) guide, which, in F10 and F9, worked flawlessly.

I've been working my ass off on this for more than 7 hours, and I've practically tried everything. Any ideas?

[Firewing1]

Have you tried the kmod-wl driver at RPM Fusion? It works perfectly for my Broadcom card with both WEP and WPA.

[bbfuller]

Hello Dsus4

The b43 driver covers only part of the broadcom range of cards and the broadcom-wl driver only claims to cover the other part.

The broadcom-wl driver does not claim to work with your 4306 chipset.

However, there are two versions of the 4306 chipset. One uses b43 and a specific firmware package the other uses b43-legacy and a completely different firmware package.

I don't believe you should need to modprobe b43, or indeed that you can uninstall it as it is part of the kernel. If you need to use the broadcom-wl driver, b43 won't load as it won't recognise the card.

Try these two commands:

/sbin/lsmod | grep b43

to see if one of the broadcom kernel modules is loading.

also:

/sbin/lspci - vnn | grep 14e4

to isolate your broadcom devices. Post back the full output of that last command.

It's the set of numbers after the 14e4 that determines which version of 4306 you have.

[Dsus4]

Have you tried the kmod-wl driver at RPM Fusion? It works perfectly for my Broadcom card with both WEP and WPA.

I've tried it, yes, but that doesn't work because those drivers are for newer chipsets, and so won't work with mine.


Try these two commands:

/sbin/lsmod | grep b43

to see if one of the broadcom kernel modules is loading.

also:

/sbin/lspci - vnn | grep 14e4

to isolate your broadcom devices. Post back the full output of that last command.

It's the set of numbers after the 14e4 that determines which version of 4306 you have.

I'm aware of these facts, and I'm quite sure that b43 is the correct driver for my card (it worked before, after all), but here you are anyway:

[root@localhost ness]# /sbin/lsmod | grep b43
[root@localhost ness]# /sbin/lspci -vnn | grep 14e4
02:02.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4306 802.11b/g Wireless LAN Controller [14e4:4320] (rev 03)

[bbfuller]

Hello Dsus4

The output from lsmod indicates that the b43 driver is not loading. As it's in the kernel it should be as soon as it detects your card.

I appreciate that you tried to uninstall the drivers when it didn't work, but just what did you do when you say:

In desperation I uninstalled the drivers

Also, did you update to F11 directly from a previous version or is this a completely new install?

Have you a Fedora 11 Live CD handy that you could run up and check that the b43 module is loading there?

[hunter362]

Have you tried the kmod-wl driver at RPM Fusion? It works perfectly for my Broadcom card with both WEP and WPA.

I just installed Fedora 11 on a Acer 5515
lspci shows it as Broadcom 4312
kernel will load the b43 driver with no errors, but no card shows up.
just installed the kmod-wl driver you mentioned, and still nothing
the kmod driver *should* load on boot, correct ?

I'm having flashbacks to the pain I had getting the Atheros card working on my other lappy.

Thanks

[Dsus4]

Hello Dsus4

The output from lsmod indicates that the b43 driver is not loading. As it's in the kernel it should be as soon as it detects your card.

I appreciate that you tried to uninstall the drivers when it didn't work, but just what did you do when you say:



I went out and deleted the b43 files (including the ko files) that were somewhere in /lib/kernel. Now in retrospect, that was probably a bad idea as I realize that those ko files might not have come from the fwcutter app that I had used previously. I suppose the next line of order would be to find a way to get those b43 ko files back (preferably without reinstalling the entire OS).


Also, did you update to F11 directly from a previous version or is this a completely new install?

Have you a Fedora 11 Live CD handy that you could run up and check that the b43 module is loading there?

I updated from a previous version. And no, I don't have a LiveCD at the moment, but I'm downloading one to burn at the moment. Maybe I can snatch the b43 drivers off of that? What do you think?

--Dany.

[bbfuller]

Hello hunter362

There are two variants of the 4312 card. Only one of them is supported by b43.

Run the command:

/sbin/lspci -vnn | grep 14e4

and paste back the result. We'll see what to do then.

[bbfuller]

Hello Dany,

Well, I think you've got the answer of why it's not working. Those files need to go back in wherever you deleted them from.

However, it may be easier to go for a new install unless you have done a lot of customisation as you don't seem to have the correct location for the files yet.

I don't have a /lib/kernel to compare with you so they obviously came from somewhere else.

Bernard

[hunter362]

Hello hunter362

There are two variants of the 4312 card. Only one of them is supported by b43.

Run the command:

/sbin/lspci -vnn | grep 14e4

and paste back the result. We'll see what to do then.

Got it! Had to install the PAE version of kmod-wl
That's the latest Kernel that just installed today, just installed F-11 on this last night to check it out before updating my 10 to 11
What is the difference between the PAE and plain i686 kernel's ?

Thanks for the reply

[bbfuller]

Hello hunter362

The normal i686 kernel only supports between 3 and 4GB of Memory. PAE stands for Physical Address Extension and allows kernels to support much more memory than that. During install the installer should detect if your processor is capable of running a PAE kernel and install it if it can.

You will then need the appropriate kmod-wl to match.

Each time your kernel is upgraded you will need to be sure there is a matching kmod available or your wireless will stop working.

If you haven't used Fedora before, kernels can change 5 or 6 times in the 6 months headline life of a Fedora distribution. The appropriate kmods are usually available within a couple of days at the slowest.

[v2cg4ss]

Hello bbfuller,

I have gone through multiple posts and I cannot get my wireless working on my laptop. I have a Gateway M675 with an integrated BCM4306. Here is the output from the command above:

# /sbin/lsmod | grep b43

b43legacy 90236 0
mac80211 164720 1 b43legacy
cfg80211 30604 2 b43legacy,mac80211
input_polldev 3076 1 b43legacy
ssb 33564 1 b43legacy

/sbin/lspci -vnn | grep 14e4

03:02.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4306 802.11b/g Wireless LAN Controller [14e4:4320] (rev 02)
Subsystem: Broadcom Corporation Device [14e4:0418]

#iwconfig

lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

wmaster0 no wireless extensions.

wlan1 IEEE 802.11bg ESSID:""
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.412 GHz Access Point: Not-Associated
Tx-Power=0 dBm
Retry min limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr=2352 B
Power Management: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

pan0 no wireless extensions.

In the Network Device Control I have one item wlan1 which is inactive. When I configure that item and double click to see the properties the Controlled by NetworkManager is checked and the Activate device when computer starts is unchecked. On the Hardware tab I have b43legacy and Broadcom Corp BCM4306... both using device wlan1

I run the following command 'service NetworkManager restart' and the wireless still won't connect. On my laptop I have a blue led that indicates the wireless adapter is active. It is not on and via numerous reboots it won't light up when F11 is restarted.

This is a dual boot system and Vista works just fine with the same WEP settings. Matter fact I have Ubuntu on the system prior and it worked just fine. So my question is:

What else do I need to do? Since this is a rev 02 bcm4306 do I need to use the ndiswrapper? I'm at the end of my rope...Thanks for any help on this issue

[bbfuller]

Hello v2cg4ss

Your setup is identifying the "other" type of 4306 card and loading the b43-legacy driver for it.

For that driver you need the other firmware package.

Download this file and put it into a directory somewhere:

http://downloads.openwrt.org/sources/wl_apsta-3.130.20.0.o

Acquire full root rights over your machine with this command in a terminal window:

su -

That's a space and a minus sign after the su. It gives you full root rights over your machine rather than just root rights over your ordinary users environment without it.

Use the cd command to navigate into the directory where you downloaded the above file. Issue the command:

b43-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware wl_apsta-3.130.20.0.o

That cuts the required firmware for your card from the downloaded file and places it in the correct place for the b43-legacy driver to find it.

Check and see if you have NetworkManager showing on the top Gnome Panel to the right in the notification area.

Restart the machine and left clicking on the NetworkManager icon should bring up a list of wireless access points to connect to.

Try that, I'm off to work now but I'll be back in about 14 hours if you still have problems.

Note that not only is the firmware package different, but so is the file you cut and its location in the firmwarepackage.

[v2cg4ss]

bbfuller,

Thank you for the quick reply, I'm just starting my day so I'll give this a try this evening. I would assume that the other firmware that I expanded and cut can be removed prior to following your procedure above?

Regards

[bbfuller]

Hello v2cg4ss

Yes, you'll find it in /lib/firmware in a folder called b43. Just remove the whole lot.

[v2cg4ss]

Hello bbfuller,

That was the trick, I'm now wireless again.

Regards

[bbfuller]

Hello v2cg4ss

Good news, enjoy your wireless and Linux.