install error, wireless broadcom driver missing, base-devel missing

Kronos · 2013-03-21 18:36:51

Hi,

I'm new to arch but not so new to linux world, I was trying to install arch for the first time following the wiki, the beguinner's installation guide and the
broadcom's tutorial and AUR repo's but cannot find a how to...

Here's my problem,
I hace a Dell netbook with a broadm bcrm4312 wireless card but the initial arch live does not recognize it, I was trying to install the drivers following the
wireless tutorial https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Wireless_Setup and the broadcom tutorial with drivers from AUR https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Broadcom_wireless
and got to a point where I have the drivers I need to install (b43 according to broadcom page) but when I use makepkg system complies as PKG_BUILD not found...
I was reading that for PKG_BUILD to work I need base-devel installed but according to the beguinner's guide it's included afterwards in the installation, also if I try to install it using
the pacstrap script I get an error of the type "/mnt not a mount point!"

AS another way I thought of installing the driver I downloaded it from the official broadcom page but when I try to compile using it's makefile bash complies saying cannot know what to do with it....

So, my question....

Which is the correct way of installing brcm4312 firmware? May I losing something to build it using makepkg?

All of this happens since the preparation to install process and by different causses i have not access to a wired network

Thanks, any help will be appreciated.

Mr.Elendig · 2013-03-21 18:45:24

You don't need base-devel to install the firmware. All you need is b43-fwcutter, which is present on the install image. You can use the package from aur, or extract the firmware by hand. If you want to use the package from aur, then I strongly suggest that you read the wiki. You want to download the tarball, not just the PKGBUILD, and also the build script is named PKGBUILD not PGK_BUILD.

As for the error from pacstrap, please see the --help message about usage.

As for the driver from broadcom, that is a compleatly different driver and you should not use it. 4312 have been supported in kernel since 2.6.33.

The reason for why 4312 doesn't work "out of the box" on arch is that we are not allowed to redistribute the firmware (send angry letters to broadcom to get them to change their policy).

Last edited by Mr.Elendig (2013-03-21 18:50:15)

ewaller · 2013-03-21 18:59:45

Install it from the AUR
https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/b43-firmware/

Kronos · 2013-03-22 03:57:25

Thanks, I'll try again, In fact I was reading the AUR wiki at attempting to install the driver afterwards I downloaded the tarball.
In that order, downloaded the tar, then unpacked as wiki said, tried to makepkg it and then got the error.
I'll try again from AUR, and tell how it got

ewaller · 2013-03-22 04:13:21

I'll bet one dark ale that you did not download the tarbell of the package, but rather downloaded the link under 'sources' on the AUR page. The 'sources' link grabs the source package from the Broadcom site. The 'Tarbel' link is hidden on the right side of the AUR page in the box labeled 'Package Actions'. The tarbel contains the BKGBUILD, and may contain patches and install scripts.

I've done it, trust me.

Last edited by ewaller (2013-03-22 04:13:51)

R3load. · 2013-05-19 15:53:00

Hi, I've got a similar problem here. I've already read through the links mentioned by the OP a while ago, along with many other references and user topics.

I only have a wireless connection available, and another PC, running Windows 7 with a connection, which is the one I'm posting this from. I downloaded the mentioned tarball, but I'm a little confused. People keep saying "you should download the tarball instead of just PKGBUILD" - but the PKGBUILD is the ONLY thing in the actual tarball. What am I supposed to do now? I read somewhere that I should also download the .tar.bz2 file listed under sources and extract it to the same folder PKGBUILD is in, so I did that. Now running makepkg -s --asroot asks me to download b43-fwcutter as a dependency, which I can't do because... well, I can't connect in the first place.

Some help sources mention installing the core packages (or wireless_tools for that matter, as mentioned in Wireless Setup) from the Live USB, but it seems to be outdated or just confusing. I can't find instructions on how to install these from the actual Live USB.

I already installed base and base-devel to /mnt two days ago, when I still had access to an Ethernet cable, but wireless_tools either didn't install or I'm just missing something. Also, iwconfig is not present on the installed system when I run arch-chroot /mnt. Isn't that a sign of wireless_tools missing?

I hope you can help me out, I've been searching and reading for days and still can't find a solution.

P.S. Just to clarify: I downloaded the tarball and source .tar.bz2 from the Windows 7 machine and transferred it to my laptop (the one I'm installing Arch on) via a second USB drive.

edit: Corrected wireless-tools to wireless_tools, which seems to be the proper name for the package.

Last edited by R3load. (2013-05-19 15:54:16)

Mr.Elendig · 2013-05-19 17:45:53

You should use iw instead of iwconfig these days. Also you should never use --asroot with makepkg, run it as a normal user instead.

R3load. · 2013-05-20 01:37:21

I'm on the Arch live image, I have to be root. Or do I? Anyway, I got around that issue, at least part of it. Now I've got a different problem:

- I downloaded the packages from the base and base-devel groups using wget -i pkglist on a connected Ubuntu machine, where pkglist was the file made with pacman -Sp --noconfirm base base-devel > pkglist.
- I'm trying to install to /mnt through pacman instead of pacstrap (since I have no idea how to do that with pacstrap without a connection), so I added a custom local repo through repo-add and copied /var/lib/pacman/sync to a same location in /mnt
- Also set up /etc/pacman.conf to include my local repo

After a long chain of trials and errors, I finally made it to a point where pacman -S -r /mnt --cachedir /mnt/var/cache/pacman/pkg base base-devel lets me pass without an error, and all the packages are listed available in my local repository called "repo". I select them all, and boom:

Total Download Size: 40.83 MiB
Total Installed Size: 510.24 MiB

I assume that means it will install 510MB of files total, but 40MB of that will have to be downloaded as dependencies. Yes, there are dependencies mentioned. What now? I wasn't told a thing about dependencies when I was getting a list of packages to download and put on a flash drive >.> Am I missing something again?

Mr.Elendig · 2013-05-21 12:52:13

You don't need base-devel to install b43-firmware. All you need is b43-fwcutter (which is present on the iso), and the blob from broadcom. If you are on the install iso still you can simply download and put the blob from braodcom on a usb stick or whatever, extract it and then run ` b43-fwcutter -w /usr/lib/firmware broadcom-wl-5.100.138/linux/wl_apsta.o` (adjust the version as needed), load the b43 module and then connect to your wifi net. THen simply continue the install as normal.

10PinkPanther · 2013-05-21 15:11:20

Is your wireless using wep or wpa?My is wpa so all I need is b43-firmware from AUR (I have broadcom 4312 too) and wpa_supplicant.I'm not installing wireless-tools.Wireless tools is for wep if I understend corectly.

Mr.Elendig · 2013-05-21 20:19:50

10PinkPanther wrote:

Is your wireless using wep or wpa?My is wpa so all I need is b43-firmware from AUR (I have broadcom 4312 too) and wpa_supplicant.I'm not installing wireless-tools.Wireless tools is for wep if I understend corectly.

wireless_tools is not required to use wep. `iw` and/or `wpa_supplicant` works fine.

Not that anyone should ever use wep.

Last edited by Mr.Elendig (2013-05-21 20:20:06)

R3load. · 2013-05-22 10:47:44

I read up some more, figured out what Mr. Elendig said (thanks though) and moved my questions to this topic because reloading b43 forces me to reboot.

Mr.Elendig · 2013-05-22 14:05:09

You should start new threads instead of highjacking old ones. (but you can reference the old thread from yours)

Arch Linux

#1 2013-03-21 18:36:51

install error, wireless broadcom driver missing, base-devel missing

#2 2013-03-21 18:45:24

Re: install error, wireless broadcom driver missing, base-devel missing

#3 2013-03-21 18:59:45

Re: install error, wireless broadcom driver missing, base-devel missing

#4 2013-03-22 03:57:25

Re: install error, wireless broadcom driver missing, base-devel missing

#5 2013-03-22 04:13:21

Re: install error, wireless broadcom driver missing, base-devel missing

#6 2013-05-19 15:53:00

Re: install error, wireless broadcom driver missing, base-devel missing

#7 2013-05-19 17:45:53

Re: install error, wireless broadcom driver missing, base-devel missing

#8 2013-05-20 01:37:21

Re: install error, wireless broadcom driver missing, base-devel missing

#9 2013-05-21 12:52:13

Re: install error, wireless broadcom driver missing, base-devel missing

#10 2013-05-21 15:11:20

Re: install error, wireless broadcom driver missing, base-devel missing

#11 2013-05-21 20:19:50

Re: install error, wireless broadcom driver missing, base-devel missing

#12 2013-05-22 10:47:44

Re: install error, wireless broadcom driver missing, base-devel missing

#13 2013-05-22 14:05:09

Re: install error, wireless broadcom driver missing, base-devel missing

Board footer