ndiswrapper to b43

[Puotta]

Ok here is what I did trying to convert from ndiswrapper to b43:

yum remove kmod-ndiswrapper
su -c '/sbin/chkconfig NetworkManager on'
su -c '/sbin/service NetworkManager start'
wget http://downloads.openwrt.org/sources/broadcom-wl-4.80.53.0.tar.bz2
tar -jxvf broadcom-wl-4.80.53.0.tar.bz2
cd broadcom-wl-4.80.53.0/kmod
/usr/bin/b43-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware wl_apsta.o
su -c 'echo "alias wlan0 b43" >> /etc/modprobe.conf'
su -c '/sbin/service NetworkManager restart'

When I tried to restart NetworkManager it came up with a "failed" when trying to stop it, so I did a full system restart.

Now network manager doesn't act like I have a wireless card. I've found that if I type

 /sbin/modprobe b43

It fixes the problem, but only until the next reboot (on a laptop, they are quite common). Also when I try to use airmon-ng it says the driver is unknown.

My question is, does anyone know how to make my wireless card work on startup, and be recognized.

[bbfuller]

Hello Puotta

Someone who had this trouble with another type of network card reported that they edited /etc/modprobe.conf to resolve the problem.

What they added, modified to your problem was:

alias wlan0 b43

If you are not wlan0 as determined by:

/sbin/iwconfig

modify the alias accordingly.

[Puotta]

Ok I did as you said and put that into modprobe.conf. Then for the sake of being clean I did a reboot.

No change, and /sbin/iwconfig returns that I don't even have wlan0 (or anything comperable).

[stoat]

Ok I did as you said and put that into modprobe.conf. Then for the sake of being clean I did a reboot.

No change...

Hello Puotta,

Just a thought: Open the /etc/modprobe.conf file with a text editor and look at it. You echoed your b43 alias for wlan0 into the file. Is it possible there is an ndiswrapper alias still sitting there, too? That echo command just appends the new line at the end of the file. It doesn't replace an existing alias. Maybe it wouldn't matter since it would be at the end (I don't know).

P.S.: People also often blacklist b43 while using ndiswrapper. If you did that, don't forget to undo it. Otherwise, that would stop the module from loading, too.

[Puotta]

nothing about ndiswrapper in the modprobe.conf file. And I don't know how to blacklist, so I'm pretty certain I didn't. On top of that I got my wireless card to work once with these drivers if it were blacklisted, that wouldn't have happened would it? but then again I haven't been able to get it to work again after that... so maybe.

How do you check if something is blacklisted?

[bbfuller]

The blacklist file is

/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

It'll be listed in there if anything is.

[Puotta]

Ok, its not blacklisted. Anything else I can try?

[Puotta]

current status: I have /sbin/modprobe b43 to run automatically when it starts.

Through network manager my card doesn't seem to be scanning for networks at all. and if I try to connect to my unsecured network here it can't do it.

[leigh123linux]

Try

su -
chkconfig --level 345 NetworkManagerDispatcher on
chkconfig --level 345 NetworkManager on

reboot

[Puotta]

nothing changed still, sadly...

[bbfuller]

Hello Puotta

Have we determined at what level of update your Fedora machine is?

If it has been updated in the last 3 weeks then it will have a new variant on the b43-fwcutter program that will not work with broadcom-wl-4.80.53.0.tar.bz2.

Though I suppose if you had the new version you would have seen error messages when you used:

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

Just in case you missed any error message, the current b43-fwcutter requires broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5.tar.bz2 which can be obtained from here:

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

The new b43-fwcutter will also only work with the mimo file in the package so the command now reads:

/usr/bin/b43-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware wl_apsta_mimo.o

For the command to work correctly in that form you will have to be root to get write permissions to /lib/firmware and you will have to have cd'd into the folder containing the wl_apsta_mimo.o file.

[Puotta]

I didn't get an error when doing

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

but I have updated with in the last three weeks so I went ahead and downloaded the other version, and "installed" it. no errors anywhere, but nothing has changed

[bbfuller]

Hello Puotta

I'm surprised that you got no errors if you are up to date.

The current b43-fwcutter won't work with the wl_apsta.o file. It throws an error message about wrong md5sum.

The current b43-fwcutter will only work with wl_apsta_mimo.o

[Puotta]

[root@localhost kmod]# /usr/bin/b43-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware wl_apsta.o
This file is recognised as:
ID : FW11
filename : wl_apsta.o
version : 351.126
MD5 : 9207bc565c2fc9fa1591f6c7911d3fc0
Extracting b43/ucode4.fw
Extracting b43/ucode5.fw
Extracting b43/ucode11.fw
Extracting b43/ucode13.fw
Extracting b43/pcm4.fw
Extracting b43/pcm5.fw
Extracting b43/b0g0initvals4.fw
Extracting b43/b0g0bsinitvals4.fw
Extracting b43/a0g0initvals4.fw
Extracting b43/a0g0bsinitvals4.fw
Extracting b43/b0g0initvals5.fw
Extracting b43/b0g0bsinitvals5.fw
Extracting b43/a0g0initvals5.fw
Extracting b43/a0g1initvals5.fw
Extracting b43/a0g0bsinitvals5.fw
Extracting b43/a0g1bsinitvals5.fw
Extracting b43/lp0initvals13.fw
Extracting b43/lp0bsinitvals13.fw
Extracting b43/b0g0initvals13.fw
Extracting b43/b0g0bsinitvals13.fw
Extracting b43/a0g1initvals13.fw
Extracting b43/a0g1bsinitvals13.fw

no errors... and I just downloaded my disc less than a week ago.

[bbfuller]

Hello Puotta

Ah, if you downloaded your disc last week it won't be up to date to last week.

Fedora 8 came out in October and there is one set of discs available with the software available then.

There is a set of "respins" available as well which contain updated software to late in December.

Neither will have the latest versions of the b43-fwcutter which is why yours works with broadcom-wl-4.80.53.0.tar.bz2.

You say in your first post that running:

/sbin/modprobe b43

fixes the problem. Is that still so?

If it does there may be a solution to run that command automatically. I haven't had the need to try it myself, but I understand that you can add that command to the file:

/etc/rc.local

to have it automatically executed at start time.