Installing NETGEAR WNDA3100v2 Driver on Fedora 17

djpokebub · #1 10th June 2012, 11:25 PM

I have tried looking everywhere for it but I can't seem to find it. Can anyone help me?

bbfuller · #2 11th June 2012, 12:22 AM

Hello djpokebub

A search on the internet for your card didn't turn up much info of help. However, there was an entry on the CentOS site where someone claimed that the command:

Code:

lsusb

produced this output for your card.

Quote:

Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0846:9011 NetGear, Inc. WNDA3100v2 802.11abgn [Broadcom BCM4323]

If your card produces the same result, and it's the id numbers (0846:9011) as well as the chipset (BCM4323) data which would be important, then it looks like the b43 driver may support it.

That needs firmware installing to work in Fedora.

Try a search for "b43" on the forum if it looks like that is the chipset in the card.

If you can't find a b43 thread I'll post the instructions in the morning if someone doesn't beat me to it.

If that quote doesn't appear to match your card then the output from:

Code:

lsusb

will help in determining what to do.

Behelit · #3 11th June 2012, 03:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bbfuller

Hello djpokebub

A search on the internet for your card didn't turn up much info of help. However, there was an entry on the CentOS site where someone claimed that the command:

Code:

lsusb

produced this output for your card.

If your card produces the same result, and it's the id numbers (0846:9011) as well as the chipset (BCM4323) data which would be important, then it looks like the b43 driver may support it.

That needs firmware installing to work in Fedora.

Try a search for "b43" on the forum if it looks like that is the chipset in the card.

If you can't find a b43 thread I'll post the instructions in the morning if someone doesn't beat me to it.

If that quote doesn't appear to match your card then the output from:

Code:

lsusb

will help in determining what to do.

I'm having the exact same issue, my WNDA3100v2 wasn't detected. It's basically the only thing stopping me from ditching Windows and installing Fedora as my main desktop, as it isn't practical for me to use a wired connection at this time. When I ran the lsusb command, here is the output I got:

Bus 001 Device 007: ID 0846:9011 Netgear, Inc. WNDA3100v2 802.11abgn [Broadcom BCM4323]

I'll look around for those b43 instructions, as my specs seem to match. How hard of a process are we talking about and what do you mean by "That needs firmware installing to work in Fedora."? I'm willing to do whatever it takes to get this working.

bbfuller · #4 11th June 2012, 04:56 PM

Hello Behelit

It's some time since I have used a broadcom card with the b43 driver.

However, it should be included in Fedora.

What we need to do is determine if any of the other broadcom drivers is claiming the card now. It may be that we would need to blacklist it if so.

If you plug the card in and then run:

Code:

dmesg

immediately after, hopefully it'll give us some clues. If you copy and paste back just the part of dmesg that relates we'll examine it.

The notes I used to use for the b43 firmware are below, slightly updated for F17. But do note that they only have a chance of working if no other driver is claiming that card. The notes may look intimidating, but really they are just a simple sequence of steps. Once you have the firmware cut and in the particular folder, you can archive it a copy it from Fedora installation to installation.

Quote:

Download this file and put it into a directory somewhere:

Code:

http://www.lwfinger.com/b43-firmware/broadcom-wl-5.100.138.tar.bz2

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

Code:

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:

Code:

tar xjf broadcom-wl-5.100.138.tar.bz2

That unpacks the file archive you downloaded and will create you a new directory where you are working called 'broadcom-wl-5.100.138'.

cd into that and then the 'driver' directory within that and use the command:

Code:

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

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

Restart the machine and left clicking on the NetworkManager icon in the system tray of either Gnome or KDE should bring up a list of wireless access points to connect to.

Left click on one of those.

Behelit · #5 12th June 2012, 04:07 AM

Hey, I had no problem cutting the firmware, as instructed... But when I rebooted, still nothing. I found the following related output in dmesg:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[ 2.266225] usb 1-1.5.1: New USB device found, idVendor=0846, idProduct=9011
[ 2.266229] usb 1-1.5.1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[ 2.266232] usb 1-1.5.1: Product: Remote Download Wireless Adapter
[ 2.266235] usb 1-1.5.1: Manufacturer: Broadcom
[ 2.266237] usb 1-1.5.1: SerialNumber: 0

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

How do I make sure that no other driver is claiming the card? I REALLY want to start using Fedora!

bbfuller · #6 12th June 2012, 10:05 AM

Hello Behelit

It seems unlikely that there isn't a command that shows drivers attached to USB devices as there is for PCI, I'm just not aware of it.

I've just plugged a USB card into one of my computers and come up with two slightly long winded ways of finding out.

One is:

Code:

yum install lshw lshw-gui

When I ran the gui part of the program it listed the USB card apart from the motherboard components and identified the driver claiming it.

The other possibility is to look in the output of:

Code:

lsmod

for likely candidates.

I think the two most likely are 'b43' itself or 'brcmsmac'. I've never used the latter and so I don't know if its module name is a shortened version of the full name.

To give you a shorter list to look through:

Code:

lsmod | grep b

will filter it.

That assumes that you haven't already tried with the broadcom-wl driver from anywhere, in which case you would be looking for 'wl' as well.

Behelit · #7 12th June 2012, 12:01 PM

I tried the first option, but since I cannot access the internet while logged into Fedora, it cannot reach out to the repository:

Code:

Error: Cannot retrieve metalink for repository: fedora. Please verify it's path and try again

I also looked through the output from lsmod, but I was unable to find anything called b43, brcmsmac, or broadcom-wl. Here is the entire output from lsmod:

Code:

# lsmod
Module                  Size  Used by
fuse                   77772  3 
bnep                   19584  2 
bluetooth             273667  7 bnep
rfkill                 21384  3 bluetooth
ip6t_REJECT            12939  2 
nf_conntrack_ipv6      14297  3 
nf_defrag_ipv6         18095  1 nf_conntrack_ipv6
nf_conntrack_ipv4      14622  2 
nf_defrag_ipv4         12673  1 nf_conntrack_ipv4
xt_state               12578  5 
nf_conntrack           82339  3 xt_state,nf_conntrack_ipv4,nf_conntrack_ipv6
ip6table_filter        12815  1 
ip6_tables             27073  1 ip6table_filter
snd_hda_codec_hdmi     36102  4 
snd_hda_codec_realtek   145421  1 
raid1                  35374  1 
microcode              19252  0 
usb_storage            56275  0 
serio_raw              13371  0 
iTCO_wdt               17948  0 
iTCO_vendor_support    13419  1 iTCO_wdt
i2c_i801               17779  0 
snd_hda_intel          33277  2 
snd_hda_codec         116112  3 snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hda_codec_hdmi
snd_hwdep              17650  1 snd_hda_codec
snd_pcm                97129  3 snd_hda_codec,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec_hdmi
snd_page_alloc         18101  2 snd_pcm,snd_hda_intel
snd_timer              28690  1 snd_pcm
snd                    78862  11 snd_timer,snd_pcm,snd_hwdep,snd_hda_codec,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hda_codec_hdmi
e1000e                198306  0 
soundcore              14491  1 snd
uinput                 17673  0 
firewire_ohci          40377  0 
firewire_core          61429  1 firewire_ohci
crc_itu_t              12579  1 firewire_core
nouveau               785691  3 
mxm_wmi                12823  1 nouveau
wmi                    18697  2 mxm_wmi,nouveau
video                  18980  1 nouveau
drm_kms_helper         40409  1 nouveau
ttm                    79709  1 nouveau
drm                   241920  5 ttm,drm_kms_helper,nouveau
i2c_core               38028  4 drm,drm_kms_helper,nouveau,i2c_i801

Once we figure out what it is, how do we actually remove the old driver? Or if there is no driver install at all, how do we force it to take the b43 driver? Keep in mind that I have zero internet when logged into Fedora.

*On a side note, if we can't get this working... Do you know of any dual band N cards that work with Fedora out of the box? I don't see how this card isn't supported, it's kind of ridiculous... The WNDA3100v2 is common, high end, and they sell it everywhere. By everywhere, I mean everywhere. Newegg.com carries it, Office Depot carries it, Best Buy carries it, Target, Radioshack, Walmart, heck even Sam's Wholesale carries it! Honestly, I couldn't find a major retailer that sells wifi adapters, that DOESN'T carry it. This is kind of an embarrassment for Fedora, I thought for certain it would be
supported. I would be very interested to find out what dual band N wireless adapters, if any, do actually work in Fedora 17 by default.

-------------------------UPDATE-------------------------

Since it's such a pain to get this thing working in Linux, I decided to just run a REALLY LONG eth cable. I think it's silly that I was forced to resort to that, but problem solved.

Edit: I take back what I said about it being an embarisment for Fedora, that was a newb response. I realize now that Broadcom / Netgear should be blamed for not making linux drivers!

av3ngr · #8 15th July 2012, 05:56 PM

Just FYI for any one who reaches here from google, after a frew bruised attempts, managed to get it working, i have tried to detail it here - http://av3ngr.wikispaces.com/Netgear+WNDA3100v2+USB

Hope it helps!

andrewmb · #9 13th January 2013, 03:32 AM

@ Av3ngr Not sure how those instructions work for you... I went through the same thing and it worked a few times but 90% of the time I had problems connecting on startup.

I installed bcmwlhigh5.inf, you need (bcmwlhigh5.sys, and bcmwlhigh564.sys) and all is well considering i spent several days robooting hoping the bcmn43xx64 would work im glad the issue is now over.

As you can see from the screenshot

, and im a newbiee

. I did get that drivers info from another forum where somone had issues not sure why cause I solved it with the same information no problem. They ended up switching wirless usbs...

This is old but I saw other posts of some that didn't solve this issue and went to long wires, if you still have the usb I can try to help.