Arch Linux

droid

Member

Registered: 2007-01-21

Posts: 19

lost in a mist of wireless madness

Good morning,

I have just installed arch on my compaq presario f500 laptop which has broadcom wireless and I cannot seem to sort out any internet connection at all. would someone be able to walk me through manually setting this up, I have read the wireless setup guide and beginners guide and am still lost. I believe the driver is installed ok I just have no idea what to do next.

.:droid:.

sykesm

Member

From: Reading, UK

Registered: 2006-09-03

Posts: 70

Re: lost in a mist of wireless madness

I notice this below looks like a very similar machine to yours

http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=43641

droid

Member

Registered: 2007-01-21

Posts: 19

Re: lost in a mist of wireless madness

indeed, although I can't connect to anything.

droid

Member

Registered: 2007-01-21

Posts: 19

Re: lost in a mist of wireless madness

would anyone be able to clarify step 5 in the wireless setup wiki, under the broadcom entry?

sykesm

Member

From: Reading, UK

Registered: 2006-09-03

Posts: 70

Re: lost in a mist of wireless madness

have you added the module in /etc/rc.conf?

MODULES=(bcm43xx)

wonder

Developer

From: Bucharest, Romania

Registered: 2006-07-05

Posts: 5,941

Website

Re: lost in a mist of wireless madness

bcm43xx need firmware and doesn't work very well. i use ndiswrapper and works flawless

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Give what you have. To someone, it may be better than you dare to think.

sykesm

Member

From: Reading, UK

Registered: 2006-09-03

Posts: 70

Re: lost in a mist of wireless madness

what was you're output from sudo hwd -s, the network part of mine looks like the following? I have no wired connetion, wireless only.

Ethernet   : No ethernet card or onboard chip
Network    : BCM4306 802.11b/g Wireless LAN Controller module: bcm43xx

also output from
sudo iwconfig

[sykesm@plamuk etc]$ sudo iwconfig

lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      IEEE 802.11b/g  ESSID:"my_essid"  Nickname:"Broadcom 4306"
          Mode:Managed  Frequency=2.437 GHz  Access Point: 00:11:14:E4:41:E2   
          Bit Rate=24 Mb/s   Tx-Power=15 dBm   
          RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:81CD-37AC-60   Security mode:open
          Link Quality=65/100  Signal level=-66 dBm  Noise level=-69 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:51  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

Last edited by sykesm (2008-02-10 12:36:21)

droid

Member

Registered: 2007-01-21

Posts: 19

Re: lost in a mist of wireless madness

hwd gives an unknown command error
iwconfig gives the same as what you posted but mine is called eth1 instead.

sykesm

Member

From: Reading, UK

Registered: 2006-09-03

Posts: 70

Re: lost in a mist of wireless madness

is hwd installed?
if not
pacman -S hwd

droid

Member

Registered: 2007-01-21

Posts: 19

Re: lost in a mist of wireless madness

Just tried and get - package hwd not found in sync db error

sykesm

Member

From: Reading, UK

Registered: 2006-09-03

Posts: 70

Re: lost in a mist of wireless madness

is you're machine connected to the internet i.e. have you got a wired connection working, and it's only you're wireless connection that's giving you problems?

if it is connected; do a "pacman -Sy" and then try "pacman -S hwd"

droid

Member

Registered: 2007-01-21

Posts: 19

Re: lost in a mist of wireless madness

I don't have any internet connection at all. I have an ethernet cable I can plug into my router, but I have no idea how to get it up and running.

bgc1954

Member

From: Edmonton, AB, Canada

Registered: 2006-03-14

Posts: 1,160

Re: lost in a mist of wireless madness

So let me get this straight.  You can connect your laptop to your router but don't know how to setup the connection.  If that's what you want then you just need to setup your /etc/rc.conf so that you have eth0="dhcp" and INTERFACES=(lo eth0).  As long as ifconfig gives your ethernet connection as eth0 it should work.  I use the bcm43xx on a T21 IBM laptop that I'm using right now and it works great.  I use wifi-radar for my wireless management and it's fairly easy to setup.

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

droid

Member

Registered: 2007-01-21

Posts: 19

Re: lost in a mist of wireless madness

ok, right. connected via ethernet, hwd and followed wireless setup instructions.

Im a little unsure of where I am at the moment, on bootup it tries to configure the network, waits and then timeouts. I can configure eth1 with iwconfig eth1 essid blah
iwconfig eth1 key s:blah
and then i try dhcpcd eth1, which times out

grateful for any ideas.

schivmeister

Developer/TU

From: Singapore

Registered: 2007-05-17

Posts: 971

Website

Re: lost in a mist of wireless madness

Wireless madness? So I can remotely control you and press the "play" and "stop" button at the same time!

Have you gotten bcm43xx-fwcutter?

People say the kernel module works great these days. I wouldn't know, have been using ndiswrapper for a long time already

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I need real, proper pen and paper for this.

droid

Member

Registered: 2007-01-21

Posts: 19

Re: lost in a mist of wireless madness

WTF! you must be on some good shit, and yes I got the cookie cutter.