[SOLVED] BC4313 wireless problem

sharon1860 · 2011-09-20 12:21:50

Hello. I'm new to Arch Linux but not really new to Linux.
I have come from the easier distros (Mandrake, Red Hat, Ubuntu, Mint, Debian) but I think its time to move to the next level. I have recently successfully installed ArchBang and had everything working on a netbook but when I tried to install ArchBang on my other laptop it failed to boot up (incompatible with my nvidia graphic card?). So I tried to do it from scratch with Arch Linux, but I failed to get through the networking part.

The laptop has BCM4313 wireless chip, I have installed the drivers in Debian before for this chip and it worked perfectly after some config,(downloaded wireless-tools, modules assistant and the broadcom-sta, modprobe & iwconfig) and I guess the steps are similar in Arch but my problem is I don't have a graphical interface to work with. I only have wireless in my house so I'm stuck, unable to download any packages to install X. I have tried to follow the wireless setup and broadcom wireless pages in the Arch Wiki but no luck, have tried to edit the mirrorlist to replace $arch with i686 but still can't get pass the networking error when I try to run pacman. (I did install wireless-tools, net-tools and netcfg during Arch Installation)

I've searched the forums and I can't find my answer. My other netbook also has the BCM4313 chip and it configures itself at bootup with no problems and no config needed with ArchBang? Pls help as I don't want to go back to Ubuntu after I have tried Arch its just too amazing!

Thanks in advance.

Sharon

Last edited by sharon1860 (2011-09-20 23:35:39)

mits · 2011-09-20 12:42:05

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Broadcom_wireless

ichase · 2011-09-20 12:42:47

Hi Sharon and Welcome to Arch Linux
The easiest and quickest way to set up your wireless that works great for me is to initially use your wpa_supplicant.conf with netcfg.
When you chose your packages to install during the initial install of Arch, did you recall installing netcfg?
If you are not sure, see if you have a directory titled /etc/network.d
If you did, then setting up the initial network is a piece of cake.

Will wait for your answer.

All the best,

Ian

sharon1860 · 2011-09-20 13:06:50

Thanks for the replies.
Yes I have installed netcfg but how do I setup the wireless?
I have read the Broadcom Wireless wiki its basically the same as in Debian's which I have done that in Debian before.
I really have no idea without the graphical interface though :-(
Is it a good idea to just copy the files from my netbook with working wireless? If so, which files??

mits · 2011-09-20 13:37:00

Why didn't you install Arch with Lan conection, or you can try Chakra linux for begining (my BCM4312 is working out of box in chakra).

Gusar · 2011-09-20 13:51:18

Did you do what's written on the wiki page, blacklist the bcma module? It conflicts with the brcmsmac driver. That page is a bit outdated, I think for a lot of those cards one can use b43 instead of the closed broadcom-wl, but when it comes to brcmsmac, it's correct. For now. Support for those cards is coming to b43, so in the future one will use bcma+b43 instead of blacklisting bcma and using brcmsmac.

Last edited by Gusar (2011-09-20 13:53:52)

ichase · 2011-09-20 14:09:02

With netcfg and wireless tools, it should be a piece of cake to set up your wireless.
Try this and see if it works.
Move your /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf file to /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf.old

# mv /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf.old

This will ensure you have a saved copy of the original if something should go wrong.
Now you will set up the new wpa_supplicant.conf file by doing this

# wpa_passphrase MySSID "MyPassphrase" > /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf

***Make sure to substitue MySSID with the SSID of your network and MyPassphrase with your passphrase to log into your network.***
This will generate your wpa_supplicant.conf file to look for your ssid and passphrase. You can take a look at it and should look something like this.

network={
       ssid="MySSID"
       #psk="MyPassphrase"
       psk=7b271c9a7c8a6ac07d12403a1f0792d7d92b5957ff8dfd56481ced43ec6a6515
}

Now you are going to copy your Network configuration file by doing this:

# cp /etc/network.d/examples/wireless-wpa-config /etc/network.d/wpa_suppl

Now where you see at the end (wpa_supple) you can name this what ever you want. I personally name mine after my SSID.
Edit the new file to make sure it specifies the right interface, e.g.
INTERFACE="wlan0"

Now edit your /etc/rc.conf file and add the name of the configuration file to the Network section (make sure you uncomment it)
For example, the name of my SSID is Silas1 so in the Network section I added

NETWORKS=(Silas1)

Now add "net-profiles" to your DAEMONS
On next reboot, you should see Arch starting up your profile if all went well. If for some reason it does not, sign in as root and type

# /etc/rc.d/net-profiles start

It should say MySSID up and should hang for a few seconds while it connects to your network and processes your password. If all goes well, you should be back at the prompt. You can ping www.google.com to see if you have a good connection.

Like I said, this works great for me. Others here may have their own ideas that also work. I have made this work fine on 3 different machines all running wireless.

Let us know how it goes.

All the best,

Ian

Last edited by ichase (2011-09-20 14:10:33)

sharon1860 · 2011-09-20 14:09:46

I don't have lan connection only wireless. Or should I rephrase my problem... I have over 10 wifi hotspots where I live, how do I see and connect to the hotspots in a command line??

sharon1860 · 2011-09-20 14:11:31

Thanks Ian for the details, will try that tonight n let u know.

sharon1860 · 2011-09-20 14:30:49

Is it impossible to connect. Without X or something like wcid??

ichase · 2011-09-20 14:56:00

Well if wireless if your only option, then using netcfg with your wpa_supplicant I think is your best option. Once you have established a connection, then once you install X and then a GUI by all means then install wicd. That is what I have done on all of my machines. I only used netcfg to get my initial wireless conection so that I could run updates and start installing all of the necessities needed to get my base system installed.

Others more qualified then I may recommened a different approach.

sharon1860 · 2011-09-20 16:57:46

OK I tried n it gave me this:
failed to connect to wpa_supplicant - wpa_ctrl_open: no such file or directory
EPA authentication/association failed

Did I miss something here ??
tks.

Last edited by sharon1860 (2011-09-20 17:04:16)

ichase · 2011-09-20 17:24:37

Try this. Type as root

# ifconfig wlan0 up

If it does not give you any errors try forcing the daemon

# /etc/rc.d/net-profiles start

If you get any errors, please post them.

Will go from there.

Also, if you could, please post your rc.conf

Thanks,

Ian

Edit - If you receive the same failure as you previously did. I want you to try this.

# rm /etc/network.d/what ever you named you config file

I had you use the file wireless-wpa-config in /etc/network.d/examples we are going to try one of the other files in the example folder. This one is labled just wireless-wpa

# cp /etc/network.d/examples/wireless-wpa /etc/network.d/wpa_suppl  <----again, what ever you want to name this file.

Edit this file, ESSID and Passphrase in this file with YOUR essid and passphrase.

See if you get the same error.

Last edited by ichase (2011-09-20 17:40:39)

sharon1860 · 2011-09-20 23:33:49

Thanks Ian!! It's working now after I did the EDIT part,
Thanks so much couldn't have done it without you.
Problem solved ;-)

ichase · 2011-09-21 10:11:13

Awesome!!!! Glad to see you got it up and running Sharon.

All the best,

Ian

Arch Linux

#1 2011-09-20 12:21:50

[SOLVED] BC4313 wireless problem

#2 2011-09-20 12:42:05

Re: [SOLVED] BC4313 wireless problem

#3 2011-09-20 12:42:47

Re: [SOLVED] BC4313 wireless problem

#4 2011-09-20 13:06:50

Re: [SOLVED] BC4313 wireless problem

#5 2011-09-20 13:37:00

Re: [SOLVED] BC4313 wireless problem

#6 2011-09-20 13:51:18

Re: [SOLVED] BC4313 wireless problem

#7 2011-09-20 14:09:02

Re: [SOLVED] BC4313 wireless problem

#8 2011-09-20 14:09:46

Re: [SOLVED] BC4313 wireless problem

#9 2011-09-20 14:11:31

Re: [SOLVED] BC4313 wireless problem

#10 2011-09-20 14:30:49

Re: [SOLVED] BC4313 wireless problem

#11 2011-09-20 14:56:00

Re: [SOLVED] BC4313 wireless problem

#12 2011-09-20 16:57:46

Re: [SOLVED] BC4313 wireless problem

#13 2011-09-20 17:24:37

Re: [SOLVED] BC4313 wireless problem

#14 2011-09-20 23:33:49

Re: [SOLVED] BC4313 wireless problem

#15 2011-09-21 10:11:13

Re: [SOLVED] BC4313 wireless problem

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