How to: Broadcom Wireless cards

[Jhodytropical]

Thank you very much. I have a Gateway 7326GZ and my Broadcom 'BCM4306' was driving me nuts to install your method helps me install it in no time.

I am now one step closer to ditch WINDOWS.

Many Thanks

[GoldenH]

I managed to get it working by

- Install bcm43xx-fwcutter with sudo apt-get install bcm43xx-fwcutter
- extract firmware from http://drinus.net/airport/wl_apsta.o with sudo bcm43xx-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware ~/Desktop/wl_apsta.o
- goto System -> Administration -> Networking and make all connections report as "Not configured" by deactivating all of them and unchecking the "enabled" button under their properties.
- activate the wireless connection (eth1 for me), goto properties, enable it, select the proper network, reboot.

then in order to make it work, i click on my network connection icon, then click configure, and then properties. it immediately loads up, and i cancel out of all the windows (pressing OK tends to break it again until I reboot)

if I don't have an ip, i run dhclient

one other interesting thing: if i do a dmesg I see this happening alot:

[17179807.388000] bcm43xx: TODO: Incomplete code in keymac_write() at drivers/net/wireless/bcm43xx/bcm43xx_main.c:1132

it happens in between network restarts, any idea what it means?

and the message when it finally works:
[17179817.712000] SoftMAC: Open Authentication completed with 00:09:5b:9e:48:e6
[17179817.724000] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): eth1: link becomes ready
[17179827.816000] eth1: no IPv6 routers present


i've noticed when it doesn't work, I often have an IPv6 IP address, but not a v4 IP address, any idea why this might be?

edit: found out some more stuff,

whenever i boot, i get an "ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): eth1: link is not ready" error. apparently this happens when devices are reassigned after boot. I think this makes sense, maybe the internal network cards may actually be on a USB bus?
This usually goes away if you cancel out of the properties window enough times. then once it says it is ready do a dhclient. you may have to do dhclient again later, as the wired connection comes back alive and wants to play, but after the second time i haven't had it come back until after I restart when I have to do this all over again.

and, apparently if i try and plug in a Lan cable (because it's alot faster), then it gives me a IRQ conflict and the Incomplete code in keymac_write() error. The only way I know of to clear the IRQ conflict is to reboot my computer. Logging off doesn't work.

Also, I have a bandwidth of about 5 kb/s. This isn't really noticeable when I am just using internet, since my server is just connected to a dialup ISP, but, it gets really slow when i try to use a virtual desktop or transfer files and it may cause the connection to drop. Very strange.

[Kalinda]

Wow! Thanks so much! NetworkManager and wireless both work great and it was so easy! Thanks for making your guide n00b-friendly

I have one problem, though - WEP doesn't work. I believe this is common, as a bug about it was reported. I think some more stuff is required to get WPA working, however.. so I will try it later.

Also, every time I boot now, KDEWallet attacks me with a password dialogue, even though my wireless doesn't try to automatically connect with security on. It also does it without any security (it connects by itself then, though), but it all started when I turned on WEP >><<

I'll have to look around some more; I think others have had these problems.

Thanks, though!

[bigken]

Cheers mate worked a treat with my linksys WMP54G

[trl-gen]

First of all thanck you for the guide it worked very well.

I've still got one problem though. For some reason Network Manager can't see my wireless connection. My wired connection is no problem for NM. Also I configured my wireles temporarily with the standard networking applet and it works that way. I still would like to use Network Manager, it's got more options and you at least know if you've got a good connection or not. Somebody got any idea what's wrong with NM???

[usfour]

First of all thanck you for the guide it worked very well.

I've still got one problem though. For some reason Network Manager can't see my wireless connection. My wired connection is no problem for NM. Also I configured my wireles temporarily with the standard networking applet and it works that way. I still would like to use Network Manager, it's got more options and you at least know if you've got a good connection or not. Somebody got any idea what's wrong with NM???

I have the same problem with Network Manager. If I can get that working, life would be sweet.

[RezoApio]

Thanks a lot !!! It worked like a charm for me. I had the difficult version (edit: I mean by that the Broadcom Corporation BCM4318 [AirForce One 54g] 802.11g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 02)) you had mentioned but still it worked.

I had to get a new bmcwl5.sys however cos the one from the CD was not supported by the cutter. It took me some times to get it due to a difficulty to download with the firefox on this dapper version... (I will try to make it fine later).
But with the new sys file from the linksys support web site, it was ok to cut (just 2 messages about how bad it is to cut from an old driver but worded like a warning)
After that I just had to remember to rmmod the ndiswrapper, and remove the line from the /etc/modules to make it and it was ok.
sudo ifup eth1 (from the /etc/interfaces already set up for my wep password) and I had a nice ip address from the dhcp server.

Only thing that did not work at all is this new gnome network manager but as the standard network manager is just cool with the lovely green indicator of the wifi power I will just remove it completely from my system.

Once again just cool topic. Thanks a million.
William

[allnameswereout]

Is this howto for x86 only? Maybe add that notice given Ubuntu supports more and more architectures.

I'm searching for a WiFi card which works on any architecture...

[stanswx]

This works great on my Dell Inspiron 5100 with my Dell Truemobile 1370 802.11b/g card!! I couldn't get the gnome thing to work either, it just kept looking for my ethernet connection. Thanks a bunch!!

Stan

[boakes]

Theirs a better guide in this thread, its linked to on the first page at the bottom

Where? I don't see any links except for what you posted. Sorry for taking so long to respond.