Broadcom driver

[pmorg]

I have installed Fedora 12 on a Dell computer with an internal Broadcom wifi card. The installation fails to find the card and I don't find it listed among the available drivers. Any suggestions on how I can get the card working? Or, failing that how I can get the Linksys USB radio to work?

Thanks,
Phil



[pmorg@localhost ~]$ lspci -nn | grep -i -e network -e wireless
0c:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g [14e4:4315] (rev 01)
[pmorg@localhost ~]$ lsusb
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0bda:0158 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. Mass Stroage Device
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0c45:63ee Microdia
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 008 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 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 004 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 002 Device 008: ID 077b:2219 Linksys WUSB11 V2.6 802.11b Adapter
Bus 002 Device 004: ID 0bc2:3008 Seagate RSS LLC
Bus 002 Device 003: ID 058f:9254 Alcor Micro Corp. Hub
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 0409:005a NEC Corp. HighSpeed Hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 007: ID 04a9:2225 Canon, Inc. CanoScan LiDE 70
Bus 002 Device 006: ID 046d:c016 Logitech, Inc. M-UV69a/HP M-UV96 Optical Wheel Mouse

[CiaW]

Hi, from a fellow Washingtonian (I'm on the freezing part of the state!)

Looking at the linux wireless page for b43, it looks like the 4312 is partially supported. I have 4318, and the drivers from there worked fine for me. However, I think that F12 also has some wireless modules available, which I discovered after I'd installed the drivers from the linked page. You might want to do a forum search for broadcom 4312, I've seen several threads on it.

[bbfuller]

Hello pmorg

Probably the best option for a 4312 card is the broadcom-wl driver. It's reckoned to work with all of the variants of the 4312 whereas the b43 misses at least one.

These are the general notes for the broadcom-wl:

To install the broadcom-wl rpm's from rpmfusion you need to know which kernel you are running.

uname -a

from a terminal will tell you that. My machine reports:

2.6.30.9-96.fc11.i686.PAE

Install the rpmfusion repository where drivers and programs that don't make it into the full Fedora distribution are made available.

In a terminal:

su -

The space and the minus sign are important. Without them you do not get full root control of your machine.

Then use the command:

rpm -Uvh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-stable.noarch.rpm

With the repositories safely installed, use the command:

yum install kmod-wl-PAE

if the first command found a PAE kernel, if you do not have a PAE kernel use the command:

yum install kmod-wl

It should offer to install three files:

Those three if you specified the PAE kernel, the i586 version otherwise.

If it doesn't offer you the correct files cancel the installation and we'll think again.

That should get broadcom-wl installed.

At that stage, NetworkManager in the notification area of the panel to the left of the clock "may" begin to identify wireless networks when you left click on it.

If not, then in the same terminal window as you used above run:

service NetworkManager restart

Post back if you have any questions or problems.

There are also notes for getting the required parts from rpmfusion and installing them if you don't have a working internet connection on the Fedora install. Post back if you want those as well.