Wireless not working on Arch: How do I get my firmware?

dm29 · 2009-01-11 09:49:16

After a fresh install of Arch, the laptop won't pick up my wireless network. I think it might be because it doesn't have the firmware installed for it.

My card is: Broadcom Corporation BCM94311MCG wlan mini-PCI (rev 01)

I typed in

[root@arch ~]# ifconfig eth0 up
SIOCSIFFLAGS: No such file or directory

Is there an alternative to getting firmware if your Arch can't get internet connection? I read the wiki over and over, and it feels like it expects your Arch installation to already have connection. Is there a way I could burn the firmware to a cd and install/extract it that way? If so, how? I don't know many console commands yet.

Aprz · 2009-01-11 10:03:21

You read this one?

F1y3r · 2009-01-11 10:07:53

Just burn firmware and b43-fwcutter (if you don't have it already) to cd or put it on a thumb drive.

Last edited by F1y3r (2009-01-11 10:08:30)

dm29 · 2009-01-11 10:12:31

Aprz wrote:

You read this one?

Oh wow, I must have missed that. I'll try it and see if it works. Thank you for the replies!

dm29 · 2009-01-11 10:22:38

Aprz, the wiki page you showed me also assumes you have internet connection to complete the installation. I can't get " wget http://mirror2.openwrt.org/sources/broa … .5.tar.bz2 " to work for me.

F1y3r wrote:

Just burn firmware and b43-fwcutter (if you don't have it already) to cd or put it on a thumb drive.

I can burn the firmware to a cd, but how do I extract it from the cd from the console? I mentioned before I don't know a lot of console commands. ><

Last edited by dm29 (2009-01-11 10:23:50)

F1y3r · 2009-01-11 10:35:09

wget is trying to download firmware so it won't work without internet connection. Burn the cd with the firmware then mount the cd on the laptop (mount /dev/cdrom /media/cdrom) and then move it (mv /media/cdrom/your_firmware.tar.bz2 ~/folder_where_you_want_to_put_it). Command that extracts it is the tutorial (tar xjf file).

Last edited by F1y3r (2009-01-11 10:36:04)

dm29 · 2009-01-11 10:50:21

F1y3r wrote:

wget is trying to download firmware so it won't work without internet connection. Burn the cd with the firmware then mount the cd on the laptop (mount /dev/cdrom /media/cdrom) and then move it (mv /media/cdrom/your_firmware.tar.bz2 ~/folder_where_you_want_to_put_it). Command that extracts it is the tutorial (tar xjf file).

Thanks so much, I'll report back to see if it works.

dm29 · 2009-01-11 11:16:27

Seems like it's one problem after another for me! Unbelievable. Please excuse my newbishness.

So I followed your instructions, it worked fine. Except when I tried to move the firmware file from the cd to a folder, I got "mv: cannot remove '/media/cdrom/broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5.tar.bz2': Read-only file system".

Maybe I burned it wrong? I don't know why I'm getting that error. I put the cd back in my PC and was able to open the file on Windows, it doesn't look like it's a Read-only file?

F1y3r · 2009-01-11 11:26:59

Sorry, I meant cp not mv. I don't know why I wrote that. *brainfart* I hope it works now.

Last edited by F1y3r (2009-01-11 11:29:27)

der_joachim · 2009-01-11 11:30:24

dm29 wrote:

Seems like it's one problem after another for me! Unbelievable. Please excuse my newbishness.
So I followed your instructions, it worked fine. Except when I tried to move the firmware file from the cd to a folder, I got "mv: cannot remove '/media/cdrom/broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5.tar.bz2': Read-only file system".

Just use the cp command instead of mv. Cp stands for copy, whereas mv stands for move. Moving something from a read-only file system is not really possible since the file system is um.. well... read-only. You cannot modify its files.

dm29 · 2009-01-11 11:51:26

Thanks for the replies so far.

Okay, the cp command worked just fine. I moved the file to the folder /firmware, but simply putting in "tar xjf broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5.tar.bz2" after copying the file won't work. Sorry for being really newbish about this, do I have to change directories and then try to open the tar.bz2 file?

F1y3r · 2009-01-11 12:02:25

Did you do "cd ~/firmware" to go to the folder where the firmware file was copied to?

dm29 · 2009-01-11 12:39:58

Oh, no.. thanks. I'll try that and tell you if it works.

dm29 · 2009-01-11 13:07:25

Okay, almost have this done. Thanks for helping me out on this...

The firmware is 100% installed, I no longer get "SIOCSIFFLAGS: No such file or directory" when I type in "ifconfig eth0 up". But I encountered a problem at the end, when I tried doing "iwconfig eth0 essid "<myessid>" key WEPKEYISHERE" I got this error:

Error for wireless request "Set ESSID" (8B1A) :
SET failed on device eth0 ; Operation not supported.

I know my WEP key (using hexidecimal not ascii) and essid are correct, the information was taken from accessing my router. Whats causing this error? Feels like i'm really close to getting this to work right as I mess up on something again.

Last edited by dm29 (2009-01-11 13:08:31)

skualito · 2009-01-12 21:08:14

Maybe you solvedthis, since it's from yesterday, anyway : do you try set essid as root ? esle it won't work

Misfit138 · 2009-01-12 22:11:28

Here's a silly question. Did you confirm that eth0 is, in fact, your wireless card? Do you also have a lan port on the machine? You may list interfaces with

ifconfig -a

If you only have the wireless card, and no other interface, then disregard of course.

dm29 · 2009-01-13 07:59:45

skualito wrote:

Maybe you solvedthis, since it's from yesterday, anyway : do you try set essid as root ? esle it won't work

Sorry for the late reply, I haven't been home all day.

How do I set the essid as root?

dm29 · 2009-01-13 08:00:53

Misfit138 wrote:

Here's a silly question. Did you confirm that eth0 is, in fact, your wireless card? Do you also have a lan port on the machine? You may list interfaces with
ifconfig -a
If you only have the wireless card, and no other interface, then disregard of course.

You know, after rebooting a few times, my wireless seems to switch between eth0 and eth1. I've been trying to follow the wiki for a solution, but so far I've been pretty much stuck on this.

Raccoon1400 · 2009-01-13 11:42:01

I used ndiswrapper to get my broadcom card working.

tigim · 2009-01-13 16:35:40

As an aside, I highy recommend this book for learning your way around the command line, which is extremely important in a distro like Arch.

Arch Linux

#1 2009-01-11 09:49:16

Wireless not working on Arch: How do I get my firmware?

#2 2009-01-11 10:03:21

Re: Wireless not working on Arch: How do I get my firmware?

#3 2009-01-11 10:07:53

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#4 2009-01-11 10:12:31

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