[SOLVED] bcm4313

Quattrix · 2011-01-31 22:17:40

Hi,

I'm trying to install arch linux on my gf's laptop (hp pavilion dm4 ), everything is working fine apart from the wireless driver bcm4313 which is a hybrid bluetooth and wireless card.

after installing the broadcom-wl driver from the AUR, both eth0 and eth1 interfaces show up on boot however when I try and preform iwlist scan. Both devices say interface doesn't support scanning.

Any ideas where to go from here?

Thanks,
Quattrix

Last edited by Quattrix (2011-02-01 01:09:03)

nomorewindows · 2011-01-31 23:30:05

Are you using the kernel-2.6.37-5? This kernel has fixed sound problems that were introduced, but I noticed that the broad-failure card would not work due to a error message containing that the card would not initialize because of RF-kill. Getting any messages of that nature? If you are a newbie however, (just a double dose), it could be that you need the broadcom firmware files. If you use the windows driver that you may already have access to, then you would be using the ndiswrapper package, which was also updated recently.

------------------
Prior to the RF-kill issue, I've had to rmmod my b43 driver and re-modprobe it to get it going, set my iwconfig parameters and then dhcpcd (or dhclient) and it would come up. So it sounds like the two interfaces are not wireless, the wireless would be wlan(x).

Last edited by nomorewindows (2011-01-31 23:32:06)

Quattrix · 2011-02-01 00:20:31

Hey, don't seem to have any messages. According to the mac address the eth1 interface is my wireless card. I've installed arch linux on 3 different comps before though am still fairly new.

On two of the three have been broadcom bc4312 the other I had to manually install and configure the wireless drivers. Never ran into the problem I'm having with this card, I think it's confusing as its a hybrid bluetooth and wireless card in one.

Thanks.

welpert · 2011-02-01 00:26:50

Quattrix wrote:

...after installing the broadcom-wl driver from the AUR...

Hey man,

I was using the wl with a 4312 (14e4:4315) up to a few hours ago, I decided to change to the b43 due to some minor issues. You should look up if the b43 works for your card before following my instructions. Here's how I got mine working (I use networkmanager in stead of wicd by the way):

1)
Remove the wl driver (proprietary POS ): pacman -R broadcom-wl

2)
Remove wl and possibly lib80211 from rc.conf

3)
Get the b43-firmware package from the AUR: http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=21690 and makepkg, then pacman -U it.

4)
Add the modules to the MODULES section in rc.conf (load them at runtime), do NOT build them into the kernel image by adding them to the MODULES section of mkinitcpio.conf + a kernel rebuild (load them at boot time - don't do it). Building into the kernel caused the driver to deauthenticate my connection on authentication each time.

5)
You should have a functional wifi connection.

Good luck!

Last edited by welpert (2011-02-01 00:27:48)

nomorewindows · 2011-02-01 00:35:37

Don't forget to blacklist your modules in /etc/rc.conf so that the proper driver loads!
As far as I remember each of the b43 depending on which one could result in the legacy driver on one and the propietary on the other. It could also be this significant difference. 4312 might work after you've done it several times, but the 4313 may require a totally different procedure and there's a b43 arch wiki you've probably already read.

welpert · 2011-02-01 00:39:54

nomorewindows wrote:

Don't forget to blacklist your modules in /etc/rc.conf so that the proper driver loads!

Yeah or remove them all together.. like I said. But, as I have said in my first post and as nomorewindows says now: be sure the driver supports the b4313 as well. You do not want to be mucking around like i did for the last few hours (me=linux noob).

Quattrix · 2011-02-01 00:47:39

Hey welpert, in step 4 what modules are you referring to? after uninstalling broadcom-wl I no longer have wl.ko and as such I've lost the interface eth1.

I've only used the proprietary driver before .

Thanks
Quattrix

welpert · 2011-02-01 00:54:45

Hey Quattrix,

Your /etc/rc.conf should have:

MODULES=(pcspkr snd-mixer-oss snd-pcm-oss snd-hwdep ... wl ...

Just replace wl by b43 so the correct module is loaded at run time. If there's a lib80211 here, remove that too (not needed by b43).

Good luck!

Last edited by welpert (2011-02-01 00:56:00)

Quattrix · 2011-02-01 01:06:01

Okay, thought i had just that running but I guess I didn't remove something as a reboot seemed to work everything is good and working great now thanks guys.

bleh proprietary vs open source drivers.

Least It's not deciding between ati drivers

Thanks everyone for your help,
You guys rock!

Arch Linux

#1 2011-01-31 22:17:40

[SOLVED] bcm4313

#2 2011-01-31 23:30:05

Re: [SOLVED] bcm4313

#3 2011-02-01 00:20:31

Re: [SOLVED] bcm4313

#4 2011-02-01 00:26:50

Re: [SOLVED] bcm4313

#5 2011-02-01 00:35:37

Re: [SOLVED] bcm4313

#6 2011-02-01 00:39:54

Re: [SOLVED] bcm4313

#7 2011-02-01 00:47:39

Re: [SOLVED] bcm4313

#8 2011-02-01 00:54:45

Re: [SOLVED] bcm4313

#9 2011-02-01 01:06:01

Re: [SOLVED] bcm4313

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