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Bub

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2007-04-24

Posts: 2

Website

[Arch 0.8 & HP nx6325] wlan bcm43xx-fwcutter no working driver

Hu guys.
I'm new to Arch. Before Arch I had openSuse 10.1 & 10.2 and for testing CentOS5. Everytime i had to use ndiswrapper for using the wlan.
Now with Arch I decided to try it with bcm43xx-fwcutter. But somehow I have a problem with the HP driver.
I downloaded the latest driver from hp.com and installed bcm43xx-fw cutter via pacman.
bcm43xx-fwcutter version is: 006
The driver Version is 4.100.15.5. And here is the problem.
When I execute "bcm43xx-fwcutter -i /bcmwl5.sys" I get the warning the the fwcutter doesn't support this version.
I should use the driver version 3.xx.xx.xx . But i have some problems finding a driver with this version. HP doesn't offer such a driver. Does someone know a suggestion or should I better use ndiswrapper?

Regards Bub

Last edited by Bub (2007-04-25 19:32:44)

metalmike

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2007-04-26

Posts: 2

Re: [Arch 0.8 & HP nx6325] wlan bcm43xx-fwcutter no working driver

Hello Bub,

I have the same laptop and had the same problem. I found a package for Ubuntu which I converted
to an Archlinux package.
First install the deb2targz package and then download the Ubuntu package from here:

http://ubuntu.cafuego.net/pool/feisty-c … u2_all.deb

Convert the Ubuntu package to an Archlinux package. It can`t be installed with pacman, so extract the files
with mc or konqueror and copy to /lib/firmware.
I know it`s a quick and dirty solution, but it works fine (at least at home).
Maybe it`s possible to write a real Archlinux package?

Hope that helps,

Mike

Last edited by metalmike (2007-04-26 13:22:32)

pelle.k

Member

From: Åre, Sweden (EU)

Registered: 2006-04-30

Posts: 667

Re: [Arch 0.8 & HP nx6325] wlan bcm43xx-fwcutter no working driver

Allthough i do not won such a card, a quick search led me to this thread; http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php? … ode=linear

From this, i would say

wget http://boredklink.googlepages.com/wl_apsta.o
mkdir /lib/firmware
bcm43xx-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware ./wl_apsta.o

Install driver.
Now reload this module, or restart your system.
Properitary firmware files is not included in arch linux...

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"Your beliefs can be like fences that surround you.
You must first see them or you will not even realize that you are not free, simply because you will not see beyond the fences.
They will represent the boundaries of your experience."
SETH / Jane Roberts

jinn

Member

From: Gothenburg

Registered: 2005-12-10

Posts: 506

Re: [Arch 0.8 & HP nx6325] wlan bcm43xx-fwcutter no working driver

Hello!

I have the same card, the firmware doesnt really matter (but should be v3.x, not 4.x) but you should install the new kernel 2.6.21, where it works just fine without patches. If you want all improvements you can patch your kernel or wait for kerne 2.6.22

Larry Finger    
till bcm43xx
   
visa detaljer
     11:15 (9 timmar sedan)
The SoftMAC version of bcm43xx has reached a new level with the release of kernel 2.6.21. For the
first time, the bcm43xx code in a kernel release works without patching and transmits and receives
at speeds faster than most Internet connections. As usual, there are enhancements in the pipeline
that became available after 2.6.21-rc1 was established. As these did not meet the definition of "bug
fixes", they have been deferred to 2.6.22-rc1 and following versions. The effects of these on
transmit and receive speeds in Mbps measured with iperf are as follows for my BCM4311:

iwconfig rate      No patches      With Patches

5.5 Mbs            4.1/10.0           4.2/11.4
6                  4.4/10.6           4.5/14.6
9                  6.2/10.6           6.2/14.1
11                 6.2/9.4            6.5/12.6
18                 10.0/11.5          10.5/16.3
24                 11.8/11.5          12.3/15.6
36                 6.8/10.0           11.8/15.0
48                 1.4/6.4            1.7/8.5

All of these patches are presently found in the wireless-2.6 git tree. As usual, the combined
patches for 2.6.21 are at ftp://lwfinger.dynalias.org/patches/com … 6.21.patch.

Where are improvements still needed? Besides the obvious fall-off with increasing rate as seen in
the above table, we also have a problem when bcm43xx is used in a congested wireless environment.
This problem has been reported by several people, but I can now reliably reproduce it using my two
test computers.

The machine that I use to test PCMCIA modules is very slow. For example recompiling a kernel using
the configuration of an openSUSE distribution kernel takes roughly 36 hours. To help speed
development and testing, I have that computer export /home with NFS and cross build the kernels.
With a BCM4311 on the main machine and a BCM4318 on the slow computer, a full kernel build is
reduced to about 4 hours. This configuration rarely fails, even with all the network traffic
involved in pulling sources from, and sending compilation results to, the slow machine. If, however,
I try to pull a git update from kernel.org, one or both of the interfaces will lose its connection
to the AP within a a very short time. The only evidence in the logs is an increased frequency of
scanning, and DHCP connection requests. No disconnection results are logged. Infrequently, bcm43xx
will log an "IRQ_READY timeout" message. If I change my main computer to a wired connection, the
git-pull will succeed. An ifdown/ifup sequence usually resumes communication.

If anyone has any thoughts on why bcm43xx and/or SoftMAC should fail under this kind of load, please
let me know so that I can test.

Thanks,

Larry
_______________________________________________
Bcm43xx-dev mailing list
Bcm43xx-dev@lists.berlios.de
https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/bcm43xx-dev

Last edited by jinn (2007-04-26 19:09:31)

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Bub

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2007-04-24

Posts: 2

Website

Re: [Arch 0.8 & HP nx6325] wlan bcm43xx-fwcutter no working driver

Thanks for your help. I would like to try it but before I could test it I first have to solve some other problems...

Regrads Bub

darkx

Member

Registered: 2007-06-27

Posts: 5

Re: [Arch 0.8 & HP nx6325] wlan bcm43xx-fwcutter no working driver

I don't get the Broadcom card to work, either.

I have tried ndiswrapper, bcm43xx-fwcutter and the standart kernel-driver nothing works.
With the ndiswrapper i can list AP but don't connect to them!

Please tell me how you got your cards working! I have the nx6325 notebook, too.

stylopath

Member

Registered: 2007-07-26

Posts: 112

Re: [Arch 0.8 & HP nx6325] wlan bcm43xx-fwcutter no working driver

i use ndiswrapper with a dell-driver (i don't remember which model it was made for), but if you want i cann send you an email with the right driver attached.

The original HP-drivers didn't work here - Neither the 32bit one nor the 64bit one . The Dell driver is for 32 bit but works also on x86_64-systems.

Its not the most beautyful solution (i dont really like using windows-drivers on linux) but it works reliable and fast

darkx

Member

Registered: 2007-06-27

Posts: 5

Re: [Arch 0.8 & HP nx6325] wlan bcm43xx-fwcutter no working driver

you got an email!

stylopath

Member

Registered: 2007-07-26

Posts: 112

Re: [Arch 0.8 & HP nx6325] wlan bcm43xx-fwcutter no working driver

and you got 2 emails