[solved] b43 (BCM4311) installation guides have not worked so far

tskapboa78 · 2012-07-01 16:31:50

hi. thanks in advance for any help. basically, i'm a new archlinux user switching over from a short term on ubuntu and no linux experience before that. as you can imagine, i'm still learning a lot and this whole situation is a little overwhelming.

so, my laptop has a b43 wireless chip (BCM4311) which has i've had issues connecting with. i've read a number of threads about this topic between the linux, ubuntu and arch forums, as well as the archlinux wiki. even after trying all of the advice that i've read, i'm still having difficulty.

i've installed the correct b43 firmware according the archlinux wiki.

checking my modules shows this:

$ lsmod | grep b43

b43                   325105  0 
ssb                    41732  1 b43
pcmcia                 31438  2 ssb,b43
bcma                   18526  1 b43
mmc_core               73223  2 ssb,b43
mac80211              336883  1 b43
cfg80211              153196  2 mac80211,b43

which bothers me because i've heard that ssb and bcma can conflict with b43. when i attempt to remove ssb i get:

$ sudo rmmod ssb

Error: Module ssb is in use by: b43

and i've already tried to blacklist it by writing "blacklist ssb" (as well as "blacklist bcma") in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf. removing and readding doesn't work either.

$ sudo rmmod b43 ssb bcma
$ sudo modprobe b43
$ lsmod | grep b43

b43                   325105  0 
ssb                    41732  1 b43
pcmcia                 31438  2 ssb,b43
bcma                   18526  1 b43
...

i'm not sure if i should be worried about driver conflicts even, because i've checked to see that my wireless card IS using b43.

# lshw -C network

 *-network               
       description: Network controller
       product: BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN
       vendor: Broadcom Corporation
       ...
       configuration: driver=b43-pci-bridge latency=0

i thought for a little while that it was a problem with my hard wireless button, but "$ rfkill list" shows that that is not the case.

i tried to set the wireless card to UP using ip link, with no luck-

$ sudo ip link set wlan0 up

doesn't throw any errors, but when i check, it is still down

$ ip link

2: wlan0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST> mtu 1500 qdisc noop state DOWN mode DEFAULT qlen 1000

finally, checking recent dmesg log shows this error message:

[ 3131.789748] b43-phy0: Loading firmware version 666.2 (2011-02-23 01:15:07)
[ 3131.857802] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready

the only information i can find about this error message in from siso.sourceforge.net/wireless-linux.html:

"ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready, merely means what it says: the link is not up yet. The link will be up once wpa_supplicant negotiated the key."

which only confuses me further. could it be that wpa_supplicant doesn't have the right drivers, or am i completely misunderstanding?

which brings me to where i am now. hopefully i didn't flood you all with too much useless information. once again, any help is very much appreciated and i hope im not wasting your time. thanks!

Last edited by tskapboa78 (2012-07-10 22:17:16)

hadrons123 · 2012-07-02 09:52:58

You can install b43-firmware from AUR.

Strike0 · 2012-07-02 17:41:26

To your question about wpa_supplicant and that error: The info you quote is misleading a bit, don't be confused about it. Your current problem is one step before.
As you have pointed out yourself the link is not up. wpa_supplicant only comes into play after you get your device to scan for wifis. Suggestion:

1. remove those blacklists you write about (outdated info)
2. Not sure the wiki is uptodate fully regarding firmware. Recheck you have the right firmware package - see hadrons123 post and also: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 2#p1106642
3. follow the manual wiki method steps from step 0, as you already did: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/B43#Manual_setup
Doing that the step 2 (scanning for available APs) must give you the correct output before wpa_supplicant is invoked.

Ask questions providing the corresponding output you cannot interpret - like you did before, you are on a good track.

nomorewindows · 2012-07-03 00:12:25

Do a iwlist <whichever> scan.
iwconfig will also point whether there is anything there where it belongs.
I prefer using wicd for connecting to the APs.

tskapboa78 · 2012-07-06 19:46:19

i actually managed to get it working with wicd. after verifying that i had installed the proper firmware and going through the archwiki it was still failing to set wlan0 up. for whatever reason, wicd managed to do it immediately. thanks everyone for the help

Strike0 · 2012-07-06 19:53:39

Ok, great to read you solved it in any case.
Go to your first post and edit the thread title, marking it [solved] sometime.

Arch Linux

#1 2012-07-01 16:31:50

[solved] b43 (BCM4311) installation guides have not worked so far

#2 2012-07-02 09:52:58

Re: [solved] b43 (BCM4311) installation guides have not worked so far

#3 2012-07-02 17:41:26

Re: [solved] b43 (BCM4311) installation guides have not worked so far

#4 2012-07-03 00:12:25

Re: [solved] b43 (BCM4311) installation guides have not worked so far

#5 2012-07-06 19:46:19

Re: [solved] b43 (BCM4311) installation guides have not worked so far

#6 2012-07-06 19:53:39

Re: [solved] b43 (BCM4311) installation guides have not worked so far

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