HOWTO: Broadcom 4318 Wireless Cards

[GlennB]

Hi,

I set up my Dell Inspiron 1300 using this howto a while back, and it worked fine once I had realised that I should not use network manager (I use static ip addressing here). the only thing I didn't understand was that the Broadcom card was seen as eth1 rather than wlan0. No biggie, it worked, so thanks to the op.

Then I didn't use wireless for a couple of weeks. When I used it again, things had gone badly wrong. Kernel version 2.6.15-27 came along during that period, along with other updates, so perhaps something changed.

The previously working eth1 had disappeared completely in system > administration > networking, and was replaced with wlan0. However, wlan0 didn't work, and would hang the machine hard when I tried to configure it with ip address, subnet mask etc. There was no response to the keyboard and the caps lock and scroll lock key lights started flashing in sync. Weird!

So I went back to the beginning and configured it all from scratch, checking the entries in /etc/iftab, /etc/network/interfaces and so on. I also checked ndiswrapper was running. All seemed ok, but every time I hit the 'configure' button for the wlan0 interface I locked up my machine.

So, as an experiment I enabled dhcp services on the router, and then set wlan0 to use dhcp. Whaddaya know? It started working. So now I think my settings for static ip must be wrong. I went back and checked them all again, then changed back to static ip. Boom, it hangs. Back to dhcp, and it all works fine.

So now I'm totally confused. This worked with static ip for about two weeks, with the Broadcom card as eth1. Now I can only make it work with dhcp, as wlan0.

What the heck happened here?? Can anyone offer any clues about what may have causes this?

Thanks,

Glenn.

[compwiz18]

Hi,

I set up my Dell Inspiron 1300 using this howto a while back, and it worked fine once I had realised that I should not use network manager (I use static ip addressing here). the only thing I didn't understand was that the Broadcom card was seen as eth1 rather than wlan0. No biggie, it worked, so thanks to the op.

Then I didn't use wireless for a couple of weeks. When I used it again, things had gone badly wrong. Kernel version 2.6.15-27 came along during that period, along with other updates, so perhaps something changed.

The previously working eth1 had disappeared completely in system > administration > networking, and was replaced with wlan0. However, wlan0 didn't work, and would hang the machine hard when I tried to configure it with ip address, subnet mask etc. There was no response to the keyboard and the caps lock and scroll lock key lights started flashing in sync. Weird!

So I went back to the beginning and configured it all from scratch, checking the entries in /etc/iftab, /etc/network/interfaces and so on. I also checked ndiswrapper was running. All seemed ok, but every time I hit the 'configure' button for the wlan0 interface I locked up my machine.

So, as an experiment I enabled dhcp services on the router, and then set wlan0 to use dhcp. Whaddaya know? It started working. So now I think my settings for static ip must be wrong. I went back and checked them all again, then changed back to static ip. Boom, it hangs. Back to dhcp, and it all works fine.

So now I'm totally confused. This worked with static ip for about two weeks, with the Broadcom card as eth1. Now I can only make it work with dhcp, as wlan0.

What the heck happened here?? Can anyone offer any clues about what may have causes this?

Thanks,

Glenn.

Can you run iwconfig and ifconfig -a and iwlist [NAME-OF-WIFI-INTERFACE] scan with static stuff enabled (if you are able) and with DHCP enabled?

[compwiz18]

EDGY INSTRUCTIONS POSTED IN FIRST POST OF THIS THREAD.

I need people on 32bit to test it for me, as I have 64bit and am unable to. If you try it, please post the results (even if it worked perfectly).

THANK YOU

Once I have feedback that the 32bit AND 64bit drivers work for someone besides me, I will drastically simplify the directions.

[GlennB]

Hi,

Can you run iwconfig and ifconfig -a and iwlist [NAME-OF-WIFI-INTERFACE] scan with static stuff enabled (if you are able) and with DHCP enabled?

I'll gladly do that, but right now my system is busy emerging a whole bunch of Gentoo stuff (shh!). I'll have some time to play with it tomorrow and report back then.

Regards,

Glenn.

[compwiz18]

Sorry about the server downtime: my modem crashed and I forgot to reset the DMZ on it...it should be back up now.

[rekahsoft]

ok...i am having an issue installing ndiswrapper on my edgy beta 1 system...i get the following errors when i install ndiswrapper:

sudo make install
make -C driver install
make[1]: Entering directory `/home/collin/Desktop/ndiswrapper-1.24/driver'
make -C /lib/modules/2.6.17-10-generic/build SUBDIRS=/home/collin/Desktop/ndiswrapper-1.24/driver
make[2]: Entering directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.17-10-generic'
  Building modules, stage 2.
  MODPOST
make[2]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.17-10-generic'
echo /lib/modules/2.6.17-10-generic/misc
/lib/modules/2.6.17-10-generic/misc
mkdir -p /lib/modules/2.6.17-10-generic/misc
install -m 0644 ndiswrapper.ko /lib/modules/2.6.17-10-generic/misc
/sbin/depmod -a 2.6.17-10-generic -b /
make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/collin/Desktop/ndiswrapper-1.24/driver'
make -C utils install
make[1]: Entering directory `/home/collin/Desktop/ndiswrapper-1.24/utils'
install -D -m 755 loadndisdriver /sbin/loadndisdriver
install -D -m 755 ndiswrapper /usr/sbin/ndiswrapper
install -D -m 755 ndiswrapper-buginfo /usr/sbin/ndiswrapper-buginfo

NOTE: Windows driver configuration file format has changed since 1.5. You must re-install Windows drivers if they were installed before.
make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/collin/Desktop/ndiswrapper-1.24/utils'
mkdir -p -m 0755 /usr/share/man/man8
install -m 644 ndiswrapper.8 /usr/share/man/man8
install -m 644 loadndisdriver.8 /usr/share/man/man8
install: cannot stat `loadndisdriver.8': No such file or directory
make: *** [install] Error 1

Why is this happening and how can i fix it? Thanks.

[RealGomer]

I did everything on the page and still no wireless connection. I'm cabled right now. I ran the script you had and here are the results:

pops@ubuntu:~$ sudo iwlist [NAME OF INTERFACE] scan
Usage: iwlist [interface] scanning
[interface] frequency
[interface] channel
[interface] bitrate
[interface] rate
[interface] encryption
[interface] key
[interface] power
[interface] txpower
[interface] retry
[interface] ap
[interface] accesspoints
[interface] peers
[interface] event
pops@ubuntu:~$ sudo iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

sit0 no wireless extensions.

eth1 IEEE 802.11g ESSID:"Trail"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.452 GHz Access Point: 00:13:46:86:60:62
Bit Rate=54 Mb/s Tx-Power:25 dBm
RTS thrff Fragment thrff
Encryption keyff
Power Managementff
Link Quality:100/100 Signal level:-48 dBm Noise level:-256 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:22 Invalid misc:5502 Missed beacon:0

pops@ubuntu:~$

When I click on the Network Connection icon, I get this error:

SIOCGIFFLAGS error: No such device

My D-Link control panel does show the wireless connection. Also, when the wireless icon is clicked, I get a meesage it's waiting for the passphrase. Is that something different from the WEP Hex code?

Thank you.

[compwiz18]

@rekahsoft: Run sudo apt-get install build-essential in thye Terminal...sorry about that.

[rekahsoft]

@rekahsoft: Run sudo apt-get install build-essential in thye Terminal...sorry about that.

aw...we have a problem...i have build-essential installed already...i am getting the problem when i try to install ndiswrapper from source...it compiles fine.

[mshen10]

ya i got the sudo apt-get install build-essential down. I don't think i have ndiswrapper compiled. can someone help me with that? send me a PM