Arch Linux

scrawler

Member

Registered: 2005-06-07

Posts: 318

little bit of wireless help, please. [solved]

I'm stuck and would really appreciate it if someone could walk me through the steps toward getting wireless working.  I've followed the wiki entry to the letter (I think--something's obvously not right) using the fwcutter method. lsmod shows

ieee80211softmac       30720  1 bcm43xx
ieee80211              33736  2 bcm43xx,ieee80211softmac
ieee80211_crypt         6016  1 ieee80211

but ifconfig -a only shows eth0 and lo

I found the netcfg wiki page too and that gave me hope that my stupid broadcom chipset can work.

I'll provide the relevant output of lspci just to get started. What am I missing?  What did I do wrong?

04:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4310 USB Controller (rev 01)

need more?

Last edited by scrawler (2008-05-05 11:39:07)

bioe007

Member

Registered: 2007-11-12

Posts: 56

Re: little bit of wireless help, please. [solved]

04:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4310 USB Controller (rev 01)

it seems you are loading the wrong module. for 4310 afaik you should be loading b43.

I'd start by blacklisting bcm43xx in rc.conf and then try:

modprobe -rvf bcm43xx     # remove the old module
modprobe -v b43               # modprobe the correct one
ps aux | grep 'dhcp\|wlan\|wpa'  # kill any instances of dhcpcd, wpa_supplicant or anything else (gui tools etc) that might be screwing with your wifi
ifconfig wlan0 up 
iwconfig # just to check that wireless extensions are found for wlan0
iwconfig wlan0 essid <your essid>
dhcpcd -d wlan0

if that fails then you need to figure out whats going on with the b43 module, try grep'ing dmesg for b43 and wlan. Also check your /lib/firmware/b43 has the extracted firmware in it.

hth

---

configs

scrawler

Member

Registered: 2005-06-07

Posts: 318

Re: little bit of wireless help, please. [solved]

lsmod:

b43                   123432  0
ssb                    36228  1 b43
rfkill                  7440  1 b43
pcmcia                 38688  2 b43,ssb
mac80211              132236  1 b43
cfg80211               13968  1 mac80211
input_polldev           4624  1 b43
pcmcia_core            38692  2 b43,pcmcia

#ifconfig wlan0 up
wlan0: unknown interface: No such device

bgc1954

Member

From: Edmonton, AB, Canada

Registered: 2006-03-14

Posts: 1,160

Re: little bit of wireless help, please. [solved]

I'm not sure that your Broadcom 4310 will function under b43.  According to http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/b43/ it doesn't show any support for that chip.  You might have to try ndiswrapper but for me that's been acting strange lately as well.  If you look at the bcm43xx site you may also note that the 4310 isn't listed as supported, especially a usb wireless adapter.  Your only hope might be ndiswrapper.  Check the wiki.

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Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils ... - Louis Hector Berlioz

arunvragh

Member

Registered: 2007-04-17

Posts: 111

Re: little bit of wireless help, please. [solved]

I have the same wireless adapter.

I removed bcm43xx from modules in rc.conf. You can add it to modules blacklist but i think it is deprecated.

I installed ndiswrapper, downloaded the file SP34152.exe (you can google for this) used cabextract to extract it to a separate folder.

cd to the folder
as root
ndiswrapper -i bcmwl5.inf
installed wicd - added it to daemons, removed network from daemons in rc.conf (wicd has to start after dbus)
added ndiswrapper to modules in rc.conf.
added myself to group daemon with gpasswd -a arun daemons as root.
Open wicd, then i is easy to configure wireless.

I think wlan0 is not standard in all systems for b43. You can check your wireless adapter def with lspci. It is eth1 in some systems. If you want to use b43, you will have to install the firmware. You dmesg will give you the http address where the firmware is available. Then it is installable. But I am comfortable with ndiswrapper

Raccoon1400

Member

From: Ontario, Canada

Registered: 2008-04-14

Posts: 853

Re: little bit of wireless help, please. [solved]

I have a broadcom card and I use ndiswrapper. If you try ndiswrapper and run into problems, let me know.

---

Fustrated Windows users have two options.
1. Resort to the throwing of computers out of windows.
2. Resort to the throwing of windows out of computers.

scrawler

Member

Registered: 2005-06-07

Posts: 318

Re: little bit of wireless help, please. [solved]

hey guys, I got it working.  The b43 module doesn't work because the card is usb.  I'm using ndiswrapper with a dell driver.  I more or less followed these instructions, and found the driver linked from a post in the ubuntu forums.
http://linux.dell.com/wiki/index.php/Te … diswrapper

I could be more detailed but the details are on my laptop, which is put away right now.  Thanks for the help.  I never thought I'd be so happy to see a tiny blue light come on.

tigrmesh

IRC Op

From: Florida, US

Registered: 2007-12-11

Posts: 794

Re: little bit of wireless help, please. [solved]

Would you please mark this thread as solved?  That way people can find it.