Broadcom Wireless Help

deadheartsbeat · 2012-08-14 18:08:17

Hello,

I have tried my best to follow the wiki and use Google to solve this before posting but I've given up now and really need help.

I have a HP Mini1000 that I want to install Arch Linux on. However, I have no means of getting an wired connection to this computer and only have wireless.

I have a Broadcom BCM4312 wireless card

When I type "$ lspci -vnn | grep 14e4" I get:

01:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY [14e4:4315] (rev 01)

When I type "# iwconfig" I get:

lo no wireless extensions.
eth0 no wireless extensions.

I will appreciate any help I can receive.

Thank you,
Reza

mhtrinh · 2012-08-14 18:21:43

Take a look here : https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=82613&p=5

I have the same wireless device on OpenSuse. I just download the proprietary driver, apply 2 patch and compile. It seems to be what is done by the AUR package.

Last edited by mhtrinh (2012-08-14 18:22:22)

deadheartsbeat · 2012-08-14 18:38:46

mhtrinh wrote:

Take a look here : https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=82613&p=5
I have the same wireless device on OpenSuse. I just download the proprietary driver, apply 2 patch and compile. It seems to be what is done by the AUR package.

Hi there,

I don't have any internet on the device so I can't use AUR. I'm really new to linux and am pretty confused by it .

zen3gr · 2012-08-14 18:48:45

It's easy to install AUR package without an internet connection. Visit aur package page, check and downloads depencies with the corresponding tarball.

Then "sudo pacman -U /path/to/depencies if offficia"l packages or tar xvf foo, cd foo, makepkg, sudo pacman -U foo.tar.xz and the same for main program (driver).

deadheartsbeat · 2012-08-14 19:13:20

zen3gr wrote:

It's easy to install AUR package without an internet connection. Visit aur package page, check and downloads depencies with the corresponding tarball.
Then "sudo pacman -U /path/to/depencies if offficia"l packages or tar xvf foo, cd foo, makepkg, sudo pacman -U foo.tar.xz and the same for main program (driver).

This is a little too complicated for me.

What I've done so far is boot loaded from usb then partitioned the hdd on my computer. The I tried the next step on the beginner guide but it doesn't work since I don't have internet.

stevepa · 2012-08-14 20:03:48

deadheartsbeat wrote:

zen3gr wrote:
It's easy to install AUR package without an internet connection. Visit aur package page, check and downloads depencies with the corresponding tarball.
Then "sudo pacman -U /path/to/depencies if offficia"l packages or tar xvf foo, cd foo, makepkg, sudo pacman -U foo.tar.xz and the same for main program (driver).

This is a little too complicated for me.
What I've done so far is boot loaded from usb then partitioned the hdd on my computer. The I tried the next step on the beginner guide but it doesn't work since I don't have internet.

You don't have access to a wired internet connection?

deadheartsbeat · 2012-08-14 20:07:37

stevepa wrote:

deadheartsbeat wrote:
zen3gr wrote:
It's easy to install AUR package without an internet connection. Visit aur package page, check and downloads depencies with the corresponding tarball.
Then "sudo pacman -U /path/to/depencies if offficia"l packages or tar xvf foo, cd foo, makepkg, sudo pacman -U foo.tar.xz and the same for main program (driver).

This is a little too complicated for me.
What I've done so far is boot loaded from usb then partitioned the hdd on my computer. The I tried the next step on the beginner guide but it doesn't work since I don't have internet.
You don't have access to a wired internet connection?

I have a wired connection on my PC but I cannot connect my netbook to a wired connection since it doesn't have an ethernet port.

marko2010 · 2012-08-14 21:48:49

There may be a more elegant way of doing this, but I was thinking on another computer that is online download the b43 firmware:

wget http://www.lwfinger.com/b43-firmware/broadcom-wl-5.100.138.tar.bz2

then using a USB drive or some other means transfer the broadcom-wl-5.100.138.tar.bz2 file on to your HP mini. I'm guessing copy it on to your /mnt directory once after you mounted your root partition on it.

then untar:

tar xjf /mnt/broadcom-wl-5.100.138.tar.bz2

extract firware to /usr/lib/firmware with (b43-fwcutter should already be on the netinstall iso):

b43-fwcutter -w /usr/lib/firmware  /mnt/broadcom-wl-5.100.138/linux/wl_apsta.o

then load your b43 driver

modprobe b43

then run iwconfig again and see if you can now see your wlan0

If you can you should be good to go with the rest of the beginner guide ( https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners'_Guide#Setup_wireless_network ) and connect to your wireless network with wpa_supplicant

hope that works for you, I have not really tested it, but I did get wireless working on a dell with the exact same wireless chipset.

nomorewindows · 2012-08-14 22:18:44

You still will need the b43-fwcutter in order to extract the firmware even going this route.

marko2010 · 2012-08-14 22:55:36

Just from a quick look in a VM with only the just the new archlinux install environment, b43-fwcutter is already provided, so there should be now need to install it from the net.

Can't promise all the commands will work since I have not tested them exactly this way.

deadheartsbeat · 2012-08-15 13:05:09

marko2010 wrote:

There may be a more elegant way of doing this, but I was thinking on another computer that is online download the b43 firmware:
wget http://www.lwfinger.com/b43-firmware/broadcom-wl-5.100.138.tar.bz2
then using a USB drive or some other means transfer the broadcom-wl-5.100.138.tar.bz2 file on to your HP mini. I'm guessing copy it on to your /mnt directory once after you mounted your root partition on it.
then untar:
tar xjf /mnt/broadcom-wl-5.100.138.tar.bz2
extract firware to /usr/lib/firmware with (b43-fwcutter should already be on the netinstall iso):
b43-fwcutter -w /usr/lib/firmware  /mnt/broadcom-wl-5.100.138/linux/wl_apsta.o
then load your b43 driver
modprobe b43
then run iwconfig again and see if you can now see your wlan0
If you can you should be good to go with the rest of the beginner guide ( https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners'_Guide#Setup_wireless_network ) and connect to your wireless network with wpa_supplicant
hope that works for you, I have not really tested it, but I did get wireless working on a dell with the exact same wireless chipset.

Wow thank you so much. I will give this a shot and I will let you know what happens

Edit:

I followed your instructions and unfortunately the iwconfig doesn't show the wlan0

Last edited by deadheartsbeat (2012-08-15 13:32:30)

altbdoor · 2012-08-15 14:20:51

Wow guys. Stop me if I'm wrong. From wiki, OP's wireless ([14e4:4315]) is supported with the b43/b43legacy driver. Is building broadcom-wl a must?

@deadheartsbeat, is the b43/b43legacy driver loaded? You can check with the command lsmod | grep b43. If its there, it should be working. If it isn't, try modprobe b43 or modprobe b43legacy to load the driver.

deadheartsbeat · 2012-08-15 14:32:26

altbdoor wrote:

Wow guys. Stop me if I'm wrong. From wiki, OP's wireless ([14e4:4315]) is supported with the b43/b43legacy driver. Is building broadcom-wl a must?
@deadheartsbeat, is the b43/b43legacy driver loaded? You can check with the command lsmod | grep b43. If its there, it should be working. If it isn't, try modprobe b43 or modprobe b43legacy to load the driver.

I've loaded both b43 and b43legacy drivers and neither of them made the wlan show up in iwconfig

deadheartsbeat · 2012-08-15 14:55:23

I noticed during the boot sequence it says

[14.813813] Broadcom 43x driver loaded [Features: PMNLS]
[14.818548] b43-phy0 ERROR: Firmware file "b43/ucode15.fw" not found
[14.825805] b43-phy0 ERROR: Firmware file "b43-open/ucode15.fw" not found

altbdoor · 2012-08-15 15:12:18

Hmm. My bad. I googled around, and indeed, BCM4312 did pose some problems to other users as well.

Considering how building broadcom-wl failed, have you considered using ndiswrapper instead?

mhtrinh · 2012-08-15 16:21:05

deadheartsbeat wrote:

I noticed during the boot sequence it says
[14.813813] Broadcom 43x driver loaded [Features: PMNLS]
[14.818548] b43-phy0 ERROR: Firmware file "b43/ucode15.fw" not found
[14.825805] b43-phy0 ERROR: Firmware file "b43-open/ucode15.fw" not found

Sound like the firmware extacting process failed. Did you have any error with b43-fwcutter command ?
What do you have in /usr/lib/firmware/b43 ?

zylex · 2012-08-15 16:46:43

I have BCM4313 device, and all I had to do was install https://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=19514, and then "modprobe wl" (maybe "depmod -a" too, not sure). By README, your device should be supported too.

mhtrinh · 2012-08-15 16:53:52

Please the thread entirely : he don't have internet access on his new Arch installation. So forget about AUR.
So if he want to install broadcom wl driver, he will need to install it manually, meaning pre-download all the necessary source and patches, as suggested zen3gr

marko2010 · 2012-08-15 18:25:46

mhtrinh wrote:

Sound like the firmware extacting process failed. Did you have any error with b43-fwcutter command ?
What do you have in /usr/lib/firmware/b43 ?

I'm really curious about this as well. It's a good question. If the b43-fwcutter command was successful, you should have folder called "b43" in your /usr/lib/firmware directory full of firmware files. Is it there? That will narrow down the possible fixes.

Mr.Elendig · 2012-08-15 18:34:45

mhtrinh wrote:

Please the thread entirely : he don't have internet access on his new Arch installation. So forget about AUR.

Why? He is talking to us so he has internet, he can easily download the tarball and the wl driver, copy over to the other machine using floppy/usb/cd/dvd/carrier pidgeon/magnet/cosmic ray, and then run makepkg.

Anyway:
@deadheartsbeat

You have to unload then load b43 again after installing the firmware. Also check for a hw kill switch for the wifi.

deadheartsbeat · 2012-08-16 00:28:00

Well it turns out I'm 100% retarded and found an ethernet port on my netbook. I appreciate everyone's help. Once I get a clean install on the netbook I will try following your directions again..

Unfortunately, I don't know when that will be since I'm now getting writing errors

ata1.000 failed command: WRITE DMA EXT

I will most likely make a new thread for this error

Vipermaseg · 2012-08-24 04:28:20

I too use BCM4312 and don't have access to a wired network (It is not that I dont have a ethernet plug, but the AP is fisically unnaccesible).

I had problems of all kinds and colors trying to install the different drivers for this card before the installation. At last I stumbled upon a solution that works around this issue.

You only have to copy base, base-devel, grub2, and whatever you need in a CD or USB stick and then use them as repos. Here it is explained:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pa … _USB_stick

Then, after having your arch installed, you can install your drivers as you would normally do in a normal enviroment by using just the AUR scripts.

Arch Linux

#1 2012-08-14 18:08:17

Broadcom Wireless Help

#2 2012-08-14 18:21:43

Re: Broadcom Wireless Help

#3 2012-08-14 18:38:46

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