Broadcom 4328

[DaemonLee]

So, I followed these directions, at the recommendation of Southern_Gentlem:

http://fedorasolved.org/mobile/fc-wi...3xx-yum-extras

And now i have the problem of:

b43 device wlan0 does not seem to be present, delaying initialization.

Error only occurs when attempting to activate the module.

Here's a lspci for ya.

00:00.0 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP67 Memory Controller (rev a2)
00:01.0 ISA bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP67 ISA Bridge (rev a2)
00:01.1 SMBus: nVidia Corporation MCP67 SMBus (rev a2)
00:01.2 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP67 Memory Controller (rev a2)
00:01.3 Co-processor: nVidia Corporation MCP67 Co-processor (rev a2)
00:02.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP67 OHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev a2)
00:02.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP67 EHCI USB 2.0 Controller (rev a2)
00:04.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP67 OHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev a2)
00:04.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP67 EHCI USB 2.0 Controller (rev a2)
00:06.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP67 IDE Controller (rev a1)
00:07.0 Audio device: nVidia Corporation MCP67 High Definition Audio (rev a1)
00:08.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP67 PCI Bridge (rev a2)
00:09.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP67 AHCI Controller (rev a2)
00:0a.0 Ethernet controller: nVidia Corporation MCP67 Ethernet (rev a2)
00:0c.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP67 PCI Express Bridge (rev a2)
00:0d.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP67 PCI Express Bridge (rev a2)
00:12.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation GeForce 7150M (rev a2)
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control
02:05.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Ricoh Co Ltd R5C832 IEEE 1394 Controller (rev 05)
02:05.1 SD Host controller: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C822 SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro Host Adapter (rev 22)
02:05.2 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C843 MMC Host Controller (rev 12)
02:05.3 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C592 Memory Stick Bus Host Adapter (rev 12)
02:05.4 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd xD-Picture Card Controller (rev ff)
03:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4328 802.11a/b/g/n (rev 03)
[r00t@localhost ~]$

and now uname: 2.6.27.9-159.fc10.i686

My smolt: http://www.smolts.org/client/show/pu...b-a272ee29969e

Thank you for your help.

[stoat]

Hello DaemonLee,

The BCM4328 chipset is not in the list of supported chipsets at Linux Wireless (the home of b43 nowadays). But it would be worth doing this as suggested there...

/sbin/lspci -n | grep 14e4

To tell for sure if your card is supported, use the command 'lspci -n' and find the line that has the string "14e4:XXXX'. If XXXX is 4301, 4307, 4311, 4312, 4318, 4319, 4320, 4321, 4324, or 4325, the card is supported. All others are NOT supported.

[DaemonLee]

[root@localhost ~]# /sbin/lspci -n | grep 14e4
03:00.0 0280: 14e4:4328 (rev 03)


Now, I know, I'm saying these evil words around here...but, I used Ubuntu and it was packaged with a driver from Broadcom, do I still have that same option with Fedora? Maybe?

[stoat]

Now, I know, I'm saying these evil words around here...but, I used Ubuntu and it was packaged with a driver from Broadcom,...

First, nobody around here cares if you use Ubuntu. Many people here use it.

...do I still have that same option with Fedora? Maybe

No.

Ubuntu makes no bones about including proprietary drivers and software. Fedora never does that. But the BCM4328 is well known here and commonly discussed.

Some options...

The new Broadcom 802.11 Linux STA driver (broadcom-wl)

This is a real Linux driver by Broadcom. Some people are claiming that it works with the BCM4328. You can try it if you want to. However, the official Broadcom site for the driver does not include the BCM4328 in the list of supported chipsets. I have also been following at least two threads here where people tried it with a BCM4328 and neither of them worked so far. It could be a waste of your time. It's up to you.

Ndiswrapper

Ndiswrapper acts as a sort of "adapter" to make a Windows driver work in Linux. The Windows XP driver is preferred, but people still use W2K and even Windows 98 drivers. Vista drivers are known not to do well with ndiswrapper, so avoid them. And for 64-bit Fedora, use a 64-bit Windows driver with ndiswrapper. The BCM4328 chipset is known to work with ndiswrapper. If you're interested, you need to acquire the XP driver for the card. You will need the SYS and INF files. You can get them from a CD that may have come with the device, the Internet, or your Windows XP system folders. Anyway, once you have those two files, these are the steps...

NOTE: Obviously, a temporary wire connection to the Internet is needed for the downloads. I hope your computer has a NIC that you can connect to your router by wire for these next steps. If not, all is not lost. But it may be considerably more complex.

1. Put the driver SYS and INF files together in a directory, open a terminal, and cd to that directory.
   
   
2. Install ndiswrapper and the driver...

   su -
   rpm -Uvh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm
   yum update
   yum install ndiswrapper
   ndiswrapper -i [driver INF filename here]
   ndiswrapper -mi

   NOTE: The yum update step may potentially take a long time and can be considered optional. But I recommend it if you have the time and the bandwidth. You eventually need to do it anway, and it may avoid some kmod-ndiswrapper dependency issues if your system is up-to-date before attempting to install ndiswrapper. At least yum update the kernel and NetworkManager to their latest versions.
3. Reboot
   
   
4. Left-click on the NetworkManager panel tray icon and you should see your network (router SSID) in the list of available networks if your router is broadcasting its SSID. Click on your network and give NetworkManager the information it requests. You should connect. If your router is not broadcasting its SSID, then you will not see your network in the list of available networks. I recommend that you turn SSID broadcast on. If you insist that SSID broadcast be off, then try left-clicking on the NetworkManager panel tray icon and choose "Connect to hidden wireless network" or "Connect to other wireless network". Then give NetworkManager the information that it requests. You should connect.

If it doesn't work at first, check for the b43 module loading caused by your previous efforts. Ndiswrapper should be in the list generated by this command and b43 should not be there...

/sbin/lsmod | sort

If b43 is there, then blacklist it like this...

echo "blacklist b43" >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

I recommend a reboot after doing that. Then try NM again.

P.S.: If b43 is not loading or has been successfully blacklisted, then the Broadcom firmware that you installed with b43-fwcutter should do no harm just sitting there in /lib/firmware/b43. If you like, you can also delete that /b43 folder.

[DaemonLee]

The STA driver works perfectly. Thank you.

[stoat]

There surely must be others, but yours is the first BCM4328 that I know of here that has been confirmed to work with the new Broadcom driver. It's very important to have this in the record. BlueC (aka Chris and who maintains the package at RPM Fusion) will be happy to read about this.

[DaemonLee]

Handles Public/Hidden (WEP/WPA) fine. No kernel panics yet, that I'm aware of.