Problem installing Dell Wireless 1395 on Inspiron 1420

[udutronik]

Hello,

i just bought a DELL inspiron 1420 and installed FC8. Everything is OK except the WIFI.

The card is a DELL 1395 wireless. It is NOT recognized by the system (only the wlan0)
is available.

lspci sees it as a broadcom 4310 card. Googling around tells me they are the same (are they?)

I've tried using ndiswrapper to install XP driver (bcmwl5.inf) and the vista one on Dell's site.

Not luck yet. Dell offers preinstalled linux so it shoudlnt be difficult...right????

Any other ideas on things to try?

Thanks!

[bbfuller]

Hello udutronik

It is possible to use ndiswrapper to control a broadcom card but Fedora has a native driver in place called b43 which usually does the job.

If the native driver is not blacklisted it will interfere with the operation of ndiswrapper.

Usual advice would be to try b43 first.

To confirm what it is best to use would you like to post back the results of:

/sbin/lspci

where it relates to your wireless card. It may provide us with more information on what broadcom chipset it is using.

[udutronik]

Hello and thanks for helping!

Here is the LSPCI output relevant to wireless:

0c:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4310 USB Controller (rev 01)

Hope it helps...

For your information, using ndiswrapper results by having ndiswrapper -l saying driver is installed but nothing about device being present...

[birger]

If you look carefully in your messages file you will see a message telling you where to go for the firmware for the card.

The b43 developers can't distribute broadcoms firmware with the driver, so you have to get the supported version of the windows driver from the site listed in your messages file (or perhaps it was in the output from dmesg?), and use a utility called fwcutter to extract the firmware and put it in the right directory. I have another laptop with one of those cards, and the procedure was quite easy. fwcutter was already installed along with the driver.

After completing this, the driver works nicely for me. At least once I got rid of that horribly buggy 2.6.24.3-12 kernel...

[bbfuller]

Hello udutronik

I'll not make any promises about a broadcom 4310. The place I get my information from is the b43 homepage here:

http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Dr...devicefirmware

and they don't list the 4310.

If you choose to go the b43 route your options will be governed by the Fedora kernel you are running. Sometime in the life of Fedora 8 one of its changes introduced an update to b43 that requires different firmware to support the maximum variety of broadcom chipsets.

If you issue this command in a terminal:

rpm -q b43-fwcutter

it will return something like b43-fwcutter-011-3.fc8

If you wish to use b43 then post back that output and we'll talk further about blacklisting ndiswrapper and what you need to do and what firmware to download.

However, if you decide to continue to use ndiswrapper in view of the uncertainty surrounding your card and b43 then you will need to blacklist b43 as that will interfere with ndiswrapper.

The balcklist command in that case would be added to the file:

/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

There will be other entries there to guide you but the command you add is:

blacklist b43

Then if you have installed ndiswrapper from Livna and run the usual "ndiswrapper -i" against your XP driver - I gather Vista drivers don't work - "ndiswrapper -l" should list your card and the rest of the ndiswrapper install is as normal. NetworkManager should then be available to control your card.

Think about the above and post back if you want to talk some more. Particularly if you decide to use ndiswrapper, how you installed it and how far you have got in its setup.

[udutronik]

Birger : What are the messages you are talking about? I dont know about dmesg either...

bbfuller : ok, i'll try one last time with ndiswrapper since b43 doesnt officially support my card

So, here is what i did:

1) Blacklisted b43 as suggested

2) The win XP driver i found () is called bcmwl5.inf, so :

ndiswrapper -i bcmwl5.inf

3) Checking... ndiswrapper -l
output : bcmwl5 : driver installed

But nothing about the device... (from what i understand, i should read : device (address) present

Maybe its the wrong driver


By the way, output from rpm -q b43-fwcutter is :

b43-fwcutter-008-1.fc8

====

Thanks again for future help on this!

[bbfuller]

Hello udutronik

Yes, the output from ndiswrapper -l does look deficient. I only have one card using ndiswrapper at present and that's on Sabayon. However, its output from 'ndiswrapper -l' is:

sabayonx86 ~ # ndiswrapper -l
net111v2 : driver installed
        device (0846:6A00) present (alternate driver: rtl8187)

I wouldn't expect the Fedora output to look a lot different if it was working. In the days when I used ndsiwrapper - Fedora - broadcom I remember it looked pretty much like that.

One thing that is apparent though is that not all bcmwl5.inf/sys combinations are equal in ndiswrappers eyes.

I've got several variants here all of different sizes. I've attached the one I believe I used to use and you may wish to try that.

All you need to do is delete the previous one in /etc/ndiswrapper before using ndiswrapper -i on the new package.

I'd thoroughly exhaust the possibilities of ndiswrapper before you try anything with b43. It seems to be difficult to get the second one to work once you've tried the other without a re-install. I know it shouldn't be but that's just my opinion from watching what has happened to others.

With the 008 fwcutter you should use this package:

http://downloads.openwrt.org/sources/broadcom-wl-4.80.53.0.tar.bz2

and the package to cut is the wl_apsta.o file in the kmod directory.

[udutronik]

bbfuller, sorry for repeating myself but THANKS...

Unfortunately, it didnt work with your drivers, i still have only the "driver installed" with no reference to the device in ndiswrapper -l

So i guess we are now heading towards solution 2, fwcutter?


By the way, i dont mind reinstall, its all fresh, all my time devoted to the wifi problem...

What are the steps you suggest from here?

[MrHappy]

Hi udutronik

Welcome to the Forum.

I would suggest having a read of this Fedora specific web site, http://fedoramobile.org/wireless it should give you some information on Getting Started, Troubleshooting and info on Ndiswapper and the b43 driver.

MrHappy

[bbfuller]

Hello udutronik

Shame about ndiswrapper. I've been looking on their site here at the list of cards people have reported working:

http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/j...id,33/id,list/

and your Dell 1395 doesn't appear there. The nearest is the Dell 1390. That reckons to have a 4311 in it and work with some, but not all, bcmwl5 files in the Dell drivers. Some of those might be worth trying before you abandon ndiswrapper because I don't have a good feeling about b43.

I've just done a quick search on the internet and found someone here:

http://gentoo-wiki.com/HARDWARE_Dell_Inspiron_1520

on the Gentoo forum who reckons to have got it to work.

Now ignoring all the Gentoo specific stuff like installing ndiswrapper and how they control their card it reckons to work with the files form this driver:

R151519.EXE

on the Dell website.

The author at Gentoo also seems to have got it going with b43 but in that case you would need to get a wired connection to the laptop and get your fedora up to date.

It seems to need the 011 version of the b43-fwcutter which matches to an updated version of the b43 driver in the later Fedora kernels which also requires different firmware to that we've talked about so far.

Sorry if that's a bit jumbled, I've been researching as I write and that's never good for clarity. Post back if I've not been clear.

[udutronik]

OK for your information, i've tried ndiswrapping with the above driver - same results

Broadcom 4310 or Dell 1395 never seem to be on compatible lists...

I will manage to get access to wired connection and update my system. Then proceed with fwcutter

I'll keep you posted. Thanks

[bbfuller]

Hello udutronik

I wish you every luck.

If you are updating then:

rpm -q b43-fwcutter

should reveal the number 011 in the return.

If that is so then you will need different firmware to cut from what I specified above.

With 011 you should use this package:

http://mirror2.openwrt.org/sources/broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5.tar.bz2

and cut the wl_apsta_mimo.o file within the kmod directory.

[udutronik]

this issue is SOLVED! Special thanks to bbfuller for all his support

For the record, here is the procedure (key is having the right driver)

Installing a Dell Wireless 1395/Broadcom 4310 with Ndiswrapper

Use this driver from here : http://ftp.us.dell.com/network/R174291.exe
and use the bcmwl5.inf from DRIVER_US dir.

For complete tutorial, refer to this page from Dell Wiki : http://linux.dell.com/wiki/index.php...le_ndiswrapper


happy surfin' !

[bbfuller]

Hello udutronik

That's good news.

Not everyone has the patience to try lots of Windows drivers against ndiswrapper but it can be worth it.

I have a Netgear card that I can only get to work with the Windows 98 drivers from a set that are about 3 sets earlier than the current release.

Enjoy the wireless.

[ApacheRoseXB]

Hey all,

I'm having the same problem with this whole ndiswrapper thing. I have the drivers working and when i ""ndiswrapper -l" it tells me the drivers are intsalled and present. I tried following the instructions on dell (http://linux.dell.com/wiki/index.php...le_ndiswrapper) , and everything works, but at the bottom they mention turning of roaming mode. Any idea how to do that?

I'm probably missing something key...

Thanks!