Problem with broadcom driver (wl) - can't set essid

madalu · 2009-06-08 04:43:02

After a long history of failure installing linux on Mac hardware, I thought I'd try once again try installing Arch a MacBook (4,1) containing the Broadcom BCM4328 wireless card.

I followed the instructions on this wiki page (http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Broadcom_BCM4312) and installed the broadcom driver from AUR (http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=19514).

A couple of strange behaviors resulted. The first is that after the module installation, the wireless interface was set to eth0 and the ethernet interface is set to eth1. Not sure if this is a problem, but it was new to me.

That said, eth0 (wireless) was up and able to detect my wireless network with "iwlist eth0 scan".

My attempt to set the essid, however, failed.

I issued the following commands:

ifconfig eth0 up
iwconfig eth0 essid "homeplate"

But when I typed:

iwconfig eth0

it still showed essid as empty ("").

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Has anyone encountered similar problems with the Broadcom driver?

madalu · 2009-06-08 14:13:34

Well, I gave up on the broadcom driver for BCM4328 and used ndiswrapper instead. Everything seems to be working fine for now. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

BTW, what are the relative merits of the broadcom driver vs. ndiswrapper + windows driver? From what I can gather online, the broadcom driver is still pretty buggy.

Thanks.

R00KIE · 2009-06-08 17:27:26

As I see it with ndiswrapper + windows driver you need to deal with possible bugs in both, if there is a bug in ndiswrapper you can report it and it will get fixed, if the problem is the windows driver you're a a bit stuck (you can always try another version but it doesn't mean it will work better).

With a native linux driver you just have to deal with bugs in the driver, you can report them and help the developers. Also I find that things tend to work better with native linux drivers once they mature enough.

keegan · 2009-06-08 20:20:36

I have a bcm4322. Basically any command from wireless-tools (iwconfig iwlist iwpriv etc) has to be ran as root with the broadcom sta drivers. I ended up aliasing all the iw* commands to sudo iw* in bash.

madalu · 2009-06-14 19:41:44

keegan wrote:

I have a bcm4322. Basically any command from wireless-tools (iwconfig iwlist iwpriv etc) has to be ran as root with the broadcom sta drivers. I ended up aliasing all the iw* commands to sudo iw* in bash.

O.K., I'm resurrecting an old thread of mine because I still haven't solve the problem. I've installed broadcom-wl from aur on a MacBook 4,1 with the Broadcom 4328 chipset and have done the following:

sudo rmmod ndiswrapper
sudo modprobe lib80211_crypt_tkip
sudo modprobe wl

After doing this, the broadcom card appears as eth1 and I can successfully scan for local access points.

But when I type the following:

sudo ifconfig eth1 up
sudo iwconfig eth1 essid someessid key somekey

and then enter "sudo iwconfig eth1", eth1 stays as it was before, with no essid and no key.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

lifeafter2am · 2009-06-14 21:07:32

madalu wrote:

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

On my Broadcom 4322 with the wl.ko driver I HAVE to use wpa_supplicant with any type of authenication, including simple WEP keys. It's a PITA, but thats the way it is, and IMO is still better than NIDSWRAPPER.

Just as a side note, this was the way it was when I had Gentoo on this box as well .... so I would assume it's a driver bug.

Last edited by lifeafter2am (2009-06-14 21:08:24)

madalu · 2009-06-15 02:17:29

lifeafter2am wrote:

On my Broadcom 4322 with the wl.ko driver I HAVE to use wpa_supplicant
with any type of authenication, including simple WEP keys.

Thanks for the reply. My problem is that I can't even set the essid
value with iwconfig, which, as far as I understand it, is keeping the
card from associating with any network.

lifeafter2am · 2009-06-15 02:24:48

madalu wrote:

lifeafter2am wrote:
On my Broadcom 4322 with the wl.ko driver I HAVE to use wpa_supplicant
with any type of authenication, including simple WEP keys.
Thanks for the reply. My problem is that I can't even set the essid
value with iwconfig, which, as far as I understand it, is keeping the
card from associating with any network.

While it's not the greatest solution, try installing wicd and seeing if that helps you. I am using it for my internal card, since I can't set it to monitor mode with any of the drivers anyway; I use my PCMCIA card for that.

Peasantoid · 2009-06-15 02:25:53

madalu: Are you running iwconfig as root? I believe broadcom-wl requires this, for some silly-ass reason.

Last edited by Peasantoid (2009-06-15 02:26:14)

madalu · 2009-06-24 15:30:16

Peasantoid wrote:

madalu: Are you running iwconfig as root? I believe broadcom-wl requires this, for some silly-ass reason.

I've tried using iwconfig as root. In fact, I've tried everything and have yet to get iwconfig to set an essid. Has anyone else gotten wireless tools to work with the broadcom-wl driver. Or is something else (e.g., wpa-supplicant) required? I'm tearing my hair out on this one.

Here's what I've attempted on a Macbook 4,1 (Broadcom 4328 chipset):

1) Tried with an i686 install with the 2.6.29 kernel - changing card settings as root with iwconfig did not work.

2) Tried with Fedora 11. Changing settings via iwconfig did not work, but gnome-network-manager did detect the card and connect to the wireless network.

3) Tried with a new 64 bit Arch install with the 2.6.30 kernel. Once again iwconfig does not work.

Does anyone know why network manager might be able to access the card when wireless-tools cannot? I'll update as soon as I can get to an ethernet connection to test out some other tools.

coleys · 2009-06-25 23:36:24

I got it to work, I used the package from AUR (I Have a broadcom 4322, totally wish it was something else =p)

yaourt -S broadcom-wl

Anyways, then I added the modules 80211_crypt_tkip and wl in rc.conf. At first I tried to use Wicd, but it wouldn't start at one point, and at another couldn't find any wireless hotspots. I decided to give network manager a try. So I downloaded and installed networkmanager, and network-manager-applet .

pacman -S networkmanager network-manager-applet

It was able to find the wireless connections at this point, and I was able to connect(WEP Hex key) definitly did not get full speed that I have gotten from other distros typically 700k+, it was bouncing around 100-200. Mind you this was after a long process of trying to load wl as a daemon (DOH!) and I was completely stumped as to why it wouldn't work. Anyways, hopes this help you in someway.

Broadcom neeeeeeds to give us open source plssssssssssssss.

Coleys!

I have ARCH on this computer, but *for now* my laptop is using sabayon (Dual booting arch, It rocks...) Hopefully us broadcom 4322,4328 users get a solution! D=

Last edited by coleys (2009-06-25 23:40:00)

trusktr · 2010-07-24 00:37:38

Hey Coleys, did your broadcom 4322 work in sabayon? If so, maybe we can get some files to look to get an idea of what to do on Arch?

trusktr · 2010-07-24 00:49:29

I can't get mine to work. I guess i will have to try the ndiswrapper method

boogy · 2010-12-06 12:20:14

Well I have the same problem on my macbook pro 5,3. I can't get it to work with the iwconfig eth1 essid command. I'll try the solution of coleys and get back to you.

It seems that the broadcom-wl driver has some real problems.

Arch Linux

#1 2009-06-08 04:43:02

Problem with broadcom driver (wl) - can't set essid

#2 2009-06-08 14:13:34

Re: Problem with broadcom driver (wl) - can't set essid

#3 2009-06-08 17:27:26

Re: Problem with broadcom driver (wl) - can't set essid

#4 2009-06-08 20:20:36

Re: Problem with broadcom driver (wl) - can't set essid

#5 2009-06-14 19:41:44

Re: Problem with broadcom driver (wl) - can't set essid

#6 2009-06-14 21:07:32

Re: Problem with broadcom driver (wl) - can't set essid

#7 2009-06-15 02:17:29

Re: Problem with broadcom driver (wl) - can't set essid

#8 2009-06-15 02:24:48

Re: Problem with broadcom driver (wl) - can't set essid

#9 2009-06-15 02:25:53

Re: Problem with broadcom driver (wl) - can't set essid

#10 2009-06-24 15:30:16

Re: Problem with broadcom driver (wl) - can't set essid

#11 2009-06-25 23:36:24

Re: Problem with broadcom driver (wl) - can't set essid

#12 2010-07-24 00:37:38

Re: Problem with broadcom driver (wl) - can't set essid

#13 2010-07-24 00:49:29

Re: Problem with broadcom driver (wl) - can't set essid

#14 2010-12-06 12:20:14

Re: Problem with broadcom driver (wl) - can't set essid

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