Arch Linux

velovix

Member

Registered: 2014-08-06

Posts: 8

[SOLVED] Issue with Broadcom card and the Linux STA drivers

I'm attempting to install Arch on my laptop, which has a Broadcom 14e4:4365 card. This card isn't covered by any built-in Linux drivers, so I knew I'd have to build the STA drivers (found here), which proved to be a bit more complicated than I'd hoped, since I had to manually download and install every package I needed to build the drivers. I installed gcc, make, and (to my knowledge) all their dependencies, as well as linux-headers.

My problem is that I'm unable to compile the STA drivers, with this error:

KBUILD_NOPEDANTIC=1 make -C /lib/modules/`uname -r`/build M=`pwd`
make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/lib/modules/3.15.7-1-ARCH/build`
make[1]: *** No targets specified and no makefile found.  Stop.
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/lib/modules/3.15.7-1-ARCH/build`
Makefile:140: recipe for target `all` failed
make: *** [all] Error 2

If I try to use the AUR package to install the STA drivers, I get a similar error after running makepkg --asroot:

==> Starting build()...
make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/lib/modules/3.15.7-1-ARCH/build`
make[1]: *** No targets specified and no makefile found.  Stop.
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/lib/modules/3.15.7-1-ARCH/build`
==> ERROR: A failure occurred in build()
      Aborting...

I guess I should mention that I didn't let the AUR package download the STA driver source itself, since I don't have internet access on the machine. Instead, I copied the source tarball into the package's directory, and it seemed to find it automatically.

If I go to /usr/lib/modules/3.15.7-1-ARCH/build myself, all that's there is a file called "vmlinux". I tried redownloading the Arch ISO and putting the new copy on my USB drive, suspecting that something may have gotten corrupted, but this same error still happens.

It should also be noted that I'm still running Arch on my USB drive. Nothing has been written to disk yet.

Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thank you.

Last edited by velovix (2014-08-08 04:33:37)

Awebb

Member

Registered: 2010-05-06

Posts: 6,688

Re: [SOLVED] Issue with Broadcom card and the Linux STA drivers

Which AUR package is it? Does the broadcom-wl package fail as well? Are there any comments on the AUR page?

EDIT: It requires a few patches. Here: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/broadcom-wl/

Last edited by Awebb (2014-08-07 09:45:29)

velovix

Member

Registered: 2014-08-06

Posts: 8

Re: [SOLVED] Issue with Broadcom card and the Linux STA drivers

That is the package I'm using, yes. I see that it lists a few patch files, and I see them in my copy of the package files. Isn't the PKGBUILD file supposed to automate this process? This article would lead me to believe that's the case. Is there something I have to do manually pertaining to the patches?

Awebb

Member

Registered: 2010-05-06

Posts: 6,688

Re: [SOLVED] Issue with Broadcom card and the Linux STA drivers

There seems to be something missing. The driver builds without trouble on my machine. Do not just install gcc and make, install all deps of the PKGBUILD, as well as the base-devel group and the linux header package.

Do you have another computer running Arch? I suggest you try a different approach: Use the package arch-install-scripts to install a full Arch to the USB dongle, complete with all packages and a pre-build broadcom-wl. The arch-install-script packages has all the tools like pacstrap and arch-chroot you need to build arch. Boot this stick on your laptop and install Arch. I have not downloaded an Arch installer in more than a year, because I simply keep the stick up to date. You might have to add the usb hook to the mkinitcpio.conf and rebuild the initramfs. Look at the wiki about this.

velovix

Member

Registered: 2014-08-06

Posts: 8

Re: [SOLVED] Issue with Broadcom card and the Linux STA drivers

It looks like you were right! It appears that broadcom-wl can't be built on Arch until it's fully installed on the system. I got around this by using a hardwire connection to install Arch, and building broadcom-wl after that. Thank you for your help! Everything after that seemed to fall into place, and I couldn't be happier!

Awebb

Member

Registered: 2010-05-06

Posts: 6,688

Re: [SOLVED] Issue with Broadcom card and the Linux STA drivers

Oh, wired, hehe! I assumed this was somehow out of range, because building a driver in the installer shell sounds a bit desperate.

velovix

Member

Registered: 2014-08-06

Posts: 8

Re: [SOLVED] Issue with Broadcom card and the Linux STA drivers

Yeah, it was always an option, but I thought that the wired connection would have appeared as a network interface if that was a possible alternative. Turns out I was completely wrong about that!