Dell Wireless 1395 WLAN Mini Card

[borgward]

I am considering installing Fedora on Dell Inspiron 1520 laptop. Intel Pentium Dual Core. Dell Wireless 1395 WLAN Mini Card. Looking for version that will run wifi out of the box. I also have a CNET Wireless-G Dongle. Would consider using it if all else fails, but prefer not to have to carry around extra stuff. Would Fedora run said Dongle? Would there be a conflict between the mini LAN Card and the Dongle. If so how to disable LAN Card. No way that I am going to unplug the leads. Extremely hard to reconnect sometimes.

Prefer not to go the wrapper route. Probably above my Linux abilities. Someone said Broadcom bcm4312 Linux driver rhel would work. True or false. If true, where to get?

[ozjd]

Best idea is to try the live cd and see what works.

Fedora's support for mobile broadband is good so that will probably work. I believe some dell cards use broadcom chips.

[stoat]

Hello borgward and ozjd,

Dells are well-known to use Broadcom-based wireless cards. Especially that 1395 mini-card. Anyway, until very recently none of the Broadcom cards worked "out-of-the-box", as you said, in any version of Fedora. They all needed you to do something to make them work (e.g., install a driver or firmware). Now however, starting with Fedora 12 (and in Fedora 10 and 11 via updates), Fedora has some Broadcom firmware included. But it only supports a few of the many Broadcom chipsets. So, there is a good chance that you will need to do something to make your 1395 wireless card work in any version of Fedora. But they're easy things. You should start by identifying the chipset in your wireless card. That is what decides the issue...

lspci

Look in that output for the network controller. If it has a Broadcom chipset like I predicted, it will be in the format of BCM43xx. Post that information here for more help if you need it. I'm pretty sure that 1395 will use the PCI bus and be in the lspci report. I don't know about that dongle. It may use the Universal Serial Bus and be identified in this output...

lsusb

Post that, too, if you need help with that.

[borgward]

Originally Posted by stoat

Hello borgward and ozjd,

Dells are well-known to use Broadcom-based wireless cards. Especially that 1395 mini-card. Anyway, until very recently none of the Broadcom cards worked "out-of-the-box", as you said, in any version of Fedora. They all needed you to do something to make them work (e.g., install a driver or firmware). Now however, starting with Fedora 12 (and in Fedora 10 and 11 via updates), Fedora has some Broadcom firmware included. But it only supports a few of the many Broadcom chipsets. So, there is a good chance that you will need to do something to make your 1395 wireless card work in any version of Fedora. But they're easy things. You should start by identifying the chipset in your wireless card. That is what decides the issue...

lspci

Look in that output for the network controller. If it has a Broadcom chipset like I predicted, it will be in the format of BCM43xx. Post that information here for more help if you need it. I'm pretty sure that 1395 will use the PCI bus and be in the lspci report. I don't know about that dongle. It may use the Universal Serial Bus and be identified in this output...

lsusb

Post that, too, if you need help with that.

0c:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g (rev 01)

xyz@absd:~$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile PM965/GM965/GL960 Memory Controller Hub (rev 0c)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 0c)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 0c)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 02)
00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 02)
00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 02)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 02)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 02)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 4 (rev 02)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 02)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev f2)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801HEM (ICH8M) LPC Interface Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) IDE Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) SATA IDE Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 02)
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4401-B0 100Base-TX (rev 02)
03:01.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Ricoh Co Ltd R5C832 IEEE 1394 Controller (rev 05)
03:01.1 SD Host controller: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C822 SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro Host Adapter (rev 22)
03:01.2 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C843 MMC Host Controller (rev 12)
03:01.3 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C592 Memory Stick Bus Host Adapter (rev 12)
03:01.4 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd xD-Picture Card Controller (rev ff)
0c:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g (rev 01)
xyz@abcd:~$ 0c:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g (rev 01)

xyz@abcd:~$ lsusb
Bus 002 Device 005: ID 148f:2573 Ralink Technology, Corp. RT2501USB Wireless Adapter
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 05a9:2640 OmniVision Technologies, Inc.
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 007 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub

Which Fedora Live CD should I try?

Ultimately, I plan a full installation so I will need a regular set of CD's or DVD's to eliminate as much downloading as possible as I am on dialup. any suggestions.

borgward

[stoat]

Both of those wireless cards are known to work in Fedora. The BCM4312 is a very well-known Broadcom chipset around here. There are several driver methods known to work with it, but they all require you to do something to make it work (e.g., install a driver or some firmware). You can read more about that stuff in this HOWTO...

http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=239922

The USB PCI-ID number for the other card (148f:2573) is also known here to work with drivers that come with Fedora kernels nowadays. That one may "just work" in Fedora, as the saying goes. I don't use Ralink cards or know much about them, but it's not hard to find an example thread about it...

http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=185364

[r1348]

Long story short, both will work out of the box. Ralink is a well known linux-friendly company, that directly support it's linux driver and it comes shipped in the kernel. Broadcom on the other hand showed explicit hostility towards the open-source effort at writing a driver for their wireless cards, but the b43 guys made a brilliant job and the driver works really fine. There's now also an open-source firmware that works on older chipsets (like yours) that comes with Fedora 12.

[stoat]

Originally Posted by r1348

Long story short, both will work out of the box. Ralink is a well known linux-friendly company, that directly support it's linux driver and it comes shipped in the kernel. Broadcom on the other hand showed explicit hostility towards the open-source effort at writing a driver for their wireless cards, but the b43 guys made a brilliant job and the driver works really fine. There's now also an open-source firmware that works on older chipsets (like yours) that comes with Fedora 12.

Hello r1348,

Thanks for your input. But just to make the short story longer and more accurate, the BCM4312 chipset does not work "out-of-the-box" in Fedora just yet. Maybe someday. For it to work with the b43 driver to which you referred, the BCM4312 still requires us to install firmware extracted from a proprietary Broadcom driver with b43-fwcutter. Or it also is known to work with the new Broadcom 802.11 Linux STA driver (aka broadcom-wl), and that has to be installed from the RPM Fusion repositories or compiled from source available from Broadcom. The new Broadcom firmware included with Fedora and to which you referred is b43-openfwwf, but it is not yet known to work with the BCM4312 chipset (at least according to OpenFWWF). Lastly, I have never thought that the Broadcom Corporation was hostile to Linux. It is in business to make money and has competitors. Therefore, I can completely understand it focusing on the Windows market and being reluctant to release driver source code to Linux developers. But even that has changed in the last couple of years. It's the reason we have the broadcom-wl driver now.

I yield to you completely on the matter of Ralink.

[r1348]

Hmm, as far as I know the bcm4312 card is nothing but a bcm4311 card with 802.11a support (that is anyway unsupported by b43). I cannot test it right now as I gave away my old Dell laptop to my brother, I might be able to access it within days. However, the card in that laptop was marketed as "Dell Wireless 1490" so it's tricky... multiple versions of the bcm4312 chip?

About the broadcom_wl driver, I must disagree with you. It's a thin open-source abstraction layer that links to a big binary blob, similarly to the infamous Nvidia driver. Also, it came years after the bcm43xx (now b43) guys were struggling at creating a functional linux driver, and purely to satisfy their business partners. Furthermore, Broadcom never allowed free redistribution of their binary firmware, that would have permitted an out-of-the-box experience on linux way before. Note that practically all Broadcom's competitors in the wi-fi market allow free firmware redistribution.

I still don't understand why they just don't open up the code, as with the crystal hd driver they're showing to have a positive open-source approach.

[stoat]

Yes, there are multiple versions of the BCM4312 chipset. And at least one of them doesn't work with b43 yet. Linux Wireless is now the home of b43 and explains the current status, supported chipsets, and firmware requirements of b43. But all of the BCM4312 versions seem to work with broadcom-wl. Anyway, yes you should try your BCM4312 or whatever with b43-openfwwf. People sometimes discover "unadvertised" chipsets that work with these driver methods. For example, the broadcom-wl driver is "advertised" to work with the BCM4311, BCM4312, BCM4321, and BCM4322. But it has been discovered also to work with the BCM4328 and BCM43XG. Another example is neeravbm's apparent discovery that one of the multiple versions of the BCM4309 works with b43-openfwwf which at the moment officially supports only BCM4306, BCM4311, BCM4318, and BCM4320. If you discover something, then here is as good a place as any to put it into the record.