Broadcom 4306 With Ndiswrapper 54 Mbps

[WADemosthenes]

Didn't show up in network manager, gone an error messege on "ndiswrapper -m" it was:

WARNING: /etc/modprobe/d/blacklist line 1: ignoring bad line starting with 'bcm43xx'

That's all that I can think of.

[elemental666]

Just got this working with a Linksys WPC54GS (bcm4306) under Xubuntu 6.06 (Fresh install). I used the driver from linksys and renamed the inf file to match the sys file. Went without a hitch, posting wirelessly now.

[ubunturules]

WADemosthenes: It's not "bcm43xx". It's "blacklist bcm43xx".

[ericesque]

any time I try to connect using nm, it just sits there "connecting to *edited essid*" then after a while it fails and I end up with no connection. Ideas?

[ubunturules]

Make sure that you don't have anything in you /etc/network/interfaces that deals with your wireless essid.

[ericesque]

yeah that's in the guide. I don't.

[Quicksilver_Johny]

I followed the instructions, and got it to work, but then booted in XP (to install Google Browser Sync), and when I booted Xubuntu the PCMCIA... thing, didn't load on startup. The Card came on, and was listed in ifconfig, but I couldn't connect to the network. I ran through the instructions again, still same problem. -/

Also, For some reason Ndiswrapper uses eth1 and not wlan0. /etc/modprobe.d/ndiswrapper automatically says wlan0 though, and, when kept that way, It doesn't show up in System>Administration>Networking, but when edited to eth1, it does. I'm not sure if this matters.

[ericesque]

heh. I think I overlooked the fact that this is a 4306 tut, not broadcom in general. I have the infamous 4318 so I suppose I shouldn't expect this to work regardless. oops.

[benmoreassynt]

This is an excellent and simple howto that will work for many of the millions of Lynksys WRT54G users (although you need to check you have a Broadcom 4306 version of the card, as some have Texas Instruments chipsets, and are quite different. See other posts and WIKIs about how to find out if you WRT54G version. if all else fails Linksys support will be able to tell you which version you have). I know other cards and laptops use the BCM 4306 chipset, but it is handy for others to know this specifically works with the Linksys card.

I'm on my third time setting up a Ubuntu laptop with a linksys card, and it is always a pain, but these instructions are the best and simplest, and easiest to understand of the lot - highly recommended.

Follow the instructions precisely, including using the suggested URL to get the driver and inf file - you do NOT need to go to the linksys website to get the driver (although that will work too, but [THIS IS IMPORTANT, AND SELDOM MENTIONED] you then need to rename the .inf file that you will find in the download to bcmwl5.inf. I THINK the file you need to rename is called lsbcmnds.inf, but don't quote me on that. That is what I did first time around 9 months ago)

If the 1st instruction (which unloads the native driver) in the list returns a 'not found' error of some sort, don't worry but complete the rest of the instructions and then restart your computer for the changes to take effect - the native driver will be prevented from loading again.

Final note - I have had no success with using the 'native' bcmxx driver that comes with Ubuntu combined with fwcutter. The ndiswrapper route for WRT54G seems much easier, and works perfectly well, if not better (it may allow faster connections as far as I can see). There's no advantage in using the included driver, as the abscence of firmware means it is still a pain to set up. Why bother with this apparently more complex route?

[bunnicula]

I followed the instructions in the first post and when I run sudo ndiswrapper -l, it says that I have an invalid driver (I took the driver off of my Windows cd) and I get an error if I try to move on to the next step. Any ideas?