Arch Linux

Hilariousity

Member

Registered: 2009-06-09

Posts: 20

Dell wireless 1350 card with BCM4306 chipset troubles

Hello everyone,
I'm sort of new to setting up wireless in linux and my wireless card is driving me insane. I've tried the bcm43xx, bcm43, and ndiswrapper solutions from here: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Wireless and none of them seem to work. I am absolutely to determined to get the card working with ndiswrapper now. So I tried a tutorial from someguy who has the exact same chipset as me on the ubuntu forums here: http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=340689 and followed his exact instructions and it didn't work.

When I try to the command sudo "ifconfig wlan0 up" I recieve the message "SIOCSIFFLAGS: No such file or directory." So first let me go through everything I checked to make sure nothing was wrong. First when I cat out /etc/modprobe.d/ndiswrapper I recieve the message "alias wlan0 ndiswrapper." Next when I run "ndiswrapper -l" I recieve the message

"bcmwl5 : driver installed
    device (14E4:4320) present (alternate driver: ssb)"

Next when I run the command "lspci -nn" I recieve the output

"02:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4306 802.11b/g Wireless LAN Controller [14e4:4320] (rev 03)"

Finally, after I run the command "sudo ifconfig wlan0 up", if I go read the tail end of /var/log/messages.log I see the messages

"Jun  9 13:05:31 theArch kernel: input: b43-phy0 as /devices/virtual/input/input11
Jun  9 13:05:31 theArch kernel: b43 ssb0:0: firmware: requesting b43/ucode5.fw
Jun  9 13:05:31 theArch firmware.sh[2929]: Cannot find  firmware file 'b43/ucode5.fw'"

I have come to the startling conclusion that linux cannot find the driver that I installed with ndiswrapper. Is there anyway I can explicitly tell linux where the driver could be found? or should I just go out and buy a new expensive wifi card

If I were to go out and buy a new expensive wifi card, which card would you guys recommend?

wonder

Developer

From: Bucharest, Romania

Registered: 2006-07-05

Posts: 5,941

Website

Re: Dell wireless 1350 card with BCM4306 chipset troubles

Jun  9 13:05:31 theArch kernel: b43 ssb0:0: firmware: requesting b43/ucode5.fw
Jun  9 13:05:31 theArch firmware.sh[2929]: Cannot find  firmware file 'b43/ucode5.fw'"

seems that you have skip the most important part, installing the firmware. do the steps again and don't skip anything.

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

Hilariousity

Member

Registered: 2009-06-09

Posts: 20

Re: Dell wireless 1350 card with BCM4306 chipset troubles

Jun  9 13:05:31 theArch kernel: b43 ssb0:0: firmware: requesting b43/ucode5.fw
Jun  9 13:05:31 theArch firmware.sh[2929]: Cannot find  firmware file 'b43/ucode5.fw'"

seems that you have skip the most important part, installing the firmware. do the steps again and don't skip anything.

You obviously have no idea what ndiswrapper is or what it does

wonder

Developer

From: Bucharest, Romania

Registered: 2006-07-05

Posts: 5,941

Website

Re: Dell wireless 1350 card with BCM4306 chipset troubles

you obviously have no idea how to read dmesg output. that firmware is for b43 module and not for ndiswrapper.
b43 is supporting you card natively and you don't have to use that crap. like a side note, you haven't pasted anything related of ndiswrapper from dmesg.

but if you still want to use that crap, i suggest to disable b43 and b43-legacy(bcm43xx is depecrated for long time ago) and then try to modprobe ndiswrapper.

Last edited by wonder (2009-06-10 03:44:59)

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

tomk

Forum Fellow

From: Ireland

Registered: 2004-07-21

Posts: 9,839

Re: Dell wireless 1350 card with BCM4306 chipset troubles

Calm down guys - misunderstanding on both sides here.

hilariousity - when you're asking for help, you should be grateful to anyone who takes the time to respond. Telling someone they have no idea about the subject under discussion is likely to make them stop helping you, and to discourage others. I realise you're new here, so you may like to take a few minutes to read this.

wonder - he did say that he had already tried the b43* drivers, and that he was now determined to use ndiswrapper.

To return to the actual topic, wonder is correct. You need to install firmware for the b43* driver, or you need to blacklist the b43* drivers if you intend to use ndiswrapper.

Finally, if you were actually able to load the bcm43xx module, your system is out of date, and you should update it before proceeding.