Wireless problems

[deconduo]

I installed fedora 12 for the first time last night, and I have been having a lot of touble with my wireless. It is a Dell 1395 WLAN mini. I followed the instructions from http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/b43#support, but I still can't see any networks. Moreover, when I boot into windows I can no longer detect any wireless networks. Needless to say this is quite irritating. I would appreciate any help. Thanks very much.

[madhavdiwan]

First guess, You've probably uploaded the incorrect firmware, which is why it won't work with Windows either now.

Have you tried a cold boot with Windows and made sure your wifi card is On in the bios and with its hardware switch?

You should search the Fedora forums for posts on how to install drivers for that particular model of wifi card. NOTE you will have to find the exact chipset of the wifi card first . Again a Forum search should help you.

[deconduo]

It works intermittently now. Strangely enough it seems to start working if I switch off fedora improperly (by holding down the power button) When it works in windows, it keeps working until I boot into fedora, at which point it stops working again until I down shut down properly. If I use restart or shut down in fedora it stops working.aw

I'm pretty sure I have the right firmware, I asked on IRC and was directed to the firmware for the LP-PHY cards.

[twohot]

Looks to me like a Broadcom Device. Most Dell WLAN mini cards are broadcom
Confirmed here: http://www.pcpitstop.com/libraries/d.....html&print=1

I'd suggest you remove b43 and get yourself the real thing from rpmfusion
1. Install the rpmfusion repo
2. run:

yum install kmod-wl broadcom-wl

3. reboot & enjoy

[deconduo]

Thanks
Whats the best way to remove the b43?

[twohot]

Ooops! That depends on how you installed it. I've never tried b43 before. If you used yum to install it, then at the terminal type:

yum remove b43*

[stoat]

b43 is a kernel module, not an rpm package. You don't remove it with yum. There are only two Fedora 12 rpm packages that begin with the characters "b43" and will be removed by twohot's suggestion. One is a utiilty and the other is firmware. The b43 kernel module will survive that yum command.

You can remove the firmware that you installed for b43. Simply manually delete the folder /lib/firmware/b43. However, the firmware files rarely cause any trouble just sitting there if you decide to try another Broadcom driver or driver method. Every now and then, the b43 module has to be blacklisted if it is being automatically loaded when it is not wanted. But that can happen whether the firmware files are present or not.

True enough, the Broadcom 802.11 STA Linux driver is available from RPM Fusion in a precompiled yum-installable version (the kmod-wl and broadcom-wl to which twohot referred in post #4). But it officially supports only four Broadcom wireless chipsets. It "unofficially" is known to work with two additional chipsets. But there are many Broadcom wireless chipsets commonly discussed around here. You haven't even mentioned your chipset yet.

Of course continue doing what you want, but it is sort of standard procedure to identify the chipset being used by your wireless card and use that information to choose a Broadcom driver or driver method known to work with that chipset. It's more orderly anyway. Most of the Broadcom wireless chipsets commonly discussed around here are known to work with one or more currently available drivers or driver methods.

Now, I don't know what was causing the odd problem you described in post #3. Sorry. But if you want to identify the chipset of your wireless card, that Dell Mini-card almost surely will be using the PCI bus. Its chipset will be identified in the output of this...

lspci