How to: Broadcom Wireless cards

[xxrealmsxx]

It works, finally!

Thanks, this thread alone made me partition a hdd for mostly linux use for the first time.

Is there a command to start the wireless nic?

When I leave my house if I hibernate while im on wired network and I get on campus I have to restart the laptop to connect to the wireless network, any easy way around that?

[solarwind]

Yeah, this is great, but what about ndiswrapper and the bcmwl5.inf and bcmwl5.sys files? Does this method have an advantage over the ndiswrapper method?

[TheAngryPenguin]

It didn't work for me. I have a Dell Latitude D400 with a "0000:01:03.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4309 802.11a/b/g (rev 02)" wireless card. I tried with the files from the first post as well as with a .sys that's known to work well with ndiswrapper. In all cases, I've ended up with a kernel panic right as the wireless card became active. To anyone else with this particular flavor of Broadcom, here's what I've done to get it to work (and I won't go that much into detail since most of this is documented very well elsewhere...):

1) Install ndiswrapper-utils

2) Download the TrueMobile 1400 (BCM4309 - 802.11a+b+g) driver package from Linuxant's site.

3) Rename R63259.EXE to R63259.EXE.ZIP and open with Archive Manager -- extract bcmwl5.inf and bcmwl5.sys from /TMSetup

4) Do the ndiswrapper voodoo with the file(s) above.

5) Blacklist bcm43xx

6) Add ndiswrapper to /etc/modules

7) Reboot

Now, if I could only get NetworkManager to work with ndiswrapper...

[Kawayanan]

ok, anyone with the bcm4318 wireless card, below i will be telling you the absolute 100% gaurenteed way of getting it to work with 6.06 ubuntu:

go to this website, http://www.beginningubuntu.com/dapper_tips.html , and follow the guide for setting up the wireless card with ndiswrapper. (right now this website is down due to traffic hieghts but u can still get to it if u do a google search for it and view the cached version)

if your router uses a wep encryption, u have to install network manager in order to use it. the default wireless thingy wont work with wep.

there you go, ure done...it works....oh god im so glad it worked

Ok, after trying lots and lots of stuff (and many fresh installs) to get my bcm4318 working, ndiswrapper worked like a charm.

The website above was great (also has a bunch of other nice tips too). The ndiswrapper install and setup was just as easy as the howto here for the bcm43xx driver, and for the 4318 at least, it works great. As piracyrocks said, the website seems to be down (over bandwidth maybe?). As said above, just search google for the url and use the google cache. I would also suggest checking out the ndiswrapper install wiki. They have some nice info if you have more questions. They also suggest what to look for in the system logs for a sucessful install. After installing ndiswrapper, I installed network-manager-gnome and it worked with wep on the first try (using it right now ).

Thanks again to everyone here for their help and suggestions, and thank you nickm for all your work on this howto. You might think about putting something in it for 4318 owners as many seem to be having problem getting connected with the bcm43xx driver. ndiswrapper may work better for them.

Kawayanan

[nickdr]

wow nickm i freaking love you. i tried so much to get my wireless card working in ubuntu, starting with breezy. i tried ndis-wrapper and anything else i found that sounded remotely helpful. i was actually ready to give up on linux, when i saw this link on digg.com and i decided to give it one last try.
you're a lifesaver

[big_gie]

I'm having trouble using NetworkManager. It works ok with cable, but wireless is a no-go.

I have a Dell Inspiron 8500 with a Broadcom 4306 wifi card using bcm43xx.

Attached is the log of "NetworkManager --no-daemon"

It get stock to line 141 for 60 seconds it seems, then time out with "Activation (eth1/wireless): association took too long (>60s), failing activation."

Anyone have an idea???

Thanx

[smylie]

C

When Ubuntu upgrade to a new kernel (and thus a new version of the bcm module) you MUST NOT use the driver supplied on this thread.

i've had to upgrade kernel to fix acpi issues, and thus need to recompile the bcm module. However, I can't (embarrasingly enough) find the source.
The http://bcm43xx.berlios.de/ page states that it will be included in the 2.6.17 kernel, but seem to have removed the link to download the module from the page already. You can get the firmware cutter from their svn repository, but that's about it.
The documentation merely states that you can download the module from the site.

I've patched my kernel up to 2.6.17-rc6, but although the bcm43xx files are now there in drivers/net/wireless/bcm43xx, i can't find the option to include it in menconfig.

Any one know where I can download the seperate source for this module, or how to force it to build as part of the 2.6.17 kernel?

smylie

[crag277]

First of all, thanks to all the posts on these forums I'm posting from a wireless connection, and I have a Broadcom 4318 "AirForce One 54g".

Here's how I did it, maybe it'll help someone. You don't even need an internet connection.

The drivers I used are attached to the message. To follow this guide to a T downlad them and place in a folder bcm43xx on your desktop.

I've tried the procedure in this HowTo several times, on different versions of Dapper, with different drivers and it would never work. I had to use ndiswrapper to get it working.

I'm running Ubuntu i386 Dapper, Turion 64, ATI Radeon XPRESS 200M.

1) Blacklist bcm43xx driver

Open a Terminal window

Type "sudo gedit etc/modprobe.d/blacklist"

At the bottom add the lines

# get rid of the default kernel drivers

blacklist bcm43xx

2) Make sure network interfaces file is correct

Type "sudo gedit /etc/network/interfaces"

Remove all comments ('#') that you see so that all devices are handled by the default network manager.

I would reboot here and make sure the wireless light goes out

3) Install ndiswrapper

Put in Ubuntu CD. Open Synaptic Package Manager (Click System -> Administration -> Synaptic Package Manager), search for ndiswrapper-utils, and install it.
You could also type "sudo apt-get install ndiswrapper-utils

4) Conigure ndiswrapper

Open termianl and navigate the folder where your drivers are.
"cd Desktop/bcm43xx"

Type "sudo ndiswrapper -i oem3.inf"
Then type "sudo ndiswrapper -m"

Type "sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/ndiswrapper"
Change the one line in that file to read "alias eth1 ndiswrapper"

Now you should reboot so all the drivers load.

Once you reboot the wireless light on your laptop should be lit. If it worked, you should be able to click the Network Manager icon in the top right. It will probably show a disconnected ennection becuase the computer is not plugged in.
Left click it and select eth1 from the drop down menu.
Click Configure
Click Wireless Connection, then Properties. Here just enter your network information. If you're using an unprotected network you should only have to type yout SSID.

Click OK and you should now be connected! If a green signal meter and connected network icon appear in the upper right you'll know it worked.

Hope this helps!

[PPower]

i've had to upgrade kernel to fix acpi issues, and thus need to recompile the bcm module. However, I can't (embarrasingly enough) find the source.
The http://bcm43xx.berlios.de/ page states that it will be included in the 2.6.17 kernel, but seem to have removed the link to download the module from the page already. You can get the firmware cutter from their svn repository, but that's about it.
The documentation merely states that you can download the module from the site.

I've patched my kernel up to 2.6.17-rc6, but although the bcm43xx files are now there in drivers/net/wireless/bcm43xx, i can't find the option to include it in menconfig.

Any one know where I can download the seperate source for this module, or how to force it to build as part of the 2.6.17 kernel?

smylie

If I believe correctly it is installed by default. Not compiling a kernel ever I dont 100% know but oh well. Ill hunt around bcm-users later when everybody is awake! (6:30 here!)

There is a guide for compiling for .15/.16 at http://random.blackworlds.org/bcm43xx-how-to.txt

[smylie]

If I believe correctly it is installed by default. Not compiling a kernel ever I dont 100% know but oh well. Ill hunt around bcm-users later when everybody is awake! (6:30 here!)

There is a guide for compiling for .15/.16 at http://random.blackworlds.org/bcm43xx-how-to.txt

same problem - that documentation says to download the module source from http://bcm43xx.berlios.de, but as previously mentioned, the module source is not available on that page (that I can see).

smylie