How to: Broadcom Wireless cards

[bieber]

Question: Is there a way I can download the neccesary software on my computer with a wired connection, then put the files on a disk and install on the computer that isn't? I'd very much like to save the hassle of hauling the wirelessly connected machine and its monitor out into my living room...

[System84]

I use a 15" PowerBook G4 for work and I was able to successfully get wireless working with the above tutorial.

I did hit a slight snag however, for whatever reason I could not get connected through gnome-network-manager, kwifimanager, or anything like that, but I found a program in the repositories called Wifi-Radar and that allowed me connect with no problems.

There is hope for us Apple users!

[jrattner]

I have followed this guide verbatim for my Broadcom card ( Broadcom Corporation BCM4318 [AirForce One 54g] 802.11g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 02)

Yet nothing has worked. I'm using the drivers from the website offered in the tutorial. Can you help me debug, or do anything to take a step in the right direction?

[rjstevens3]

jrattner, I have the same card and have followed the guide, but i used the drivers from the HP website and then intalled them with wine, to get the correct .sys file. Still doesn't work for me.

-RJ

[lynxus]

PCMCIA Card = wpc54gs

WOW
Thank you for this post!
This needs to be sticky or posted everywhere lol!

Im sure this methoud will probably work with other devices ( As longa s they have the .sys file thingy

Anywho
THANKS AGAIN!!
MADNESS! PERFECT WOW THANKS lol

Cheers
Graham

[Mr Sprout]

I'm unable to download the community maintained (universe) repositories, some of the files are 404ing.

http://antesis.freecontrib.org/mirro...c/Packages.gz: 404 Not Found
http://antesis.freecontrib.org/mirro...c/Packages.gz: 404 Not Found

[nickm]

well its not dependant on a specific version of Ndis, as in if you use Ndis and the new version doesnt work with your card...your stuck, but this will work forever.

Also Ndis didnt work for me and this did.

[Mr Sprout]

well its not dependant on a specific version of Ndis, as in if you use Ndis and the new version doesnt work with your card...your stuck, but this will work forever.

Also Ndis didnt work for me and this did.

I used wifi-radar as mentioned above and that got it working fine. Perhaps you could add it to your main post as an alternative to Network Manager.

Thanks for this tutorial though, it's been a great help.

[rjstevens3]

Quote from the wiki page

You must remove wifi-radar, as it has a driver conflict with the driver

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/WifiDocs/Dri...4e5d044ef78d2f

I'm glad you got it working, but it probably should be tested more to see why it worked.

-RJ

[strattonbrazil]

A little adjustment...

The command "bcm43xx-fwcutter /home/$USER/Desktop/bcmwl5.sys" creates the firmware files in the directory you are current in...it cannot be assumed that is the "Desktop".

I couldn't figure out why it wasn't creating the files, then I stumbled across them in my "~" directory (where I ran the command). Not a huge thing, but I wouldn't consider myself too much of a linux newbie and it got me.

Other than that...great work...I have wireless without the pain of the ndiswrapper manual install!!! Thanks a ton!

I think you misread the command. If you type in the command you have in your post, it will spit out the firmware in the folder you're in. If you do the command he has,

sudo bcm43xx-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware ~/Desktop/bcmwl5.sys

you can see the "-w /lib/firmware", which tells the program to put them in /lib/firmware. So, if you do use the -w, you can assume it goes to /lib/firmware (or where ever you tell it). If not, you can assume it they files will drop in your current directory. Did you type it with the -w option and forget to post to the forum with it and it still put the firmware files in your current directory? Maybe you misspelled in the /lib/firmware directory and the program just spit them out to the current directory.

Anyways, it was a good article.