HOW TO: Configure wireless cards with Broadcom chipsets

[fezzik]

I have had this working several times now. I recently tried to install Debian and it messed up my whole computer apparantly my computer scares the Debian Kernel cause it tends to get all paniced. Anyway after all that and I reinstalled Ubuntu 5.10 from scratch I can't get the stupid wifi working. I have done everything on this list except for using a newer Ndiswrapper cause everytime I try to install it it fails cause it is looking for some file that doesn't exist. Besides I used to get it working with no trouble before. Like I say I have done this several times before. Including three fresh installs and two new kernel compiles. Everything seems to come up fine like everything is working fine except the radio. I tried doing the RadioState thing but the .conf files don't have it. I tried newer Ndiswrappers but installing them always failed cause they were looking for a file that didn't exist or directory or something. Can someone please help. I don't know what I am missing. Like I say it used to be fairly simple to get it going now it is like nothing works despite my doing everything exactly as I always have.

[utopcats]

PLS help me ......
i am very new user of ubuntu ..
i have work on wireless problem about 2 mouth now ....
and after the frist clean install of 5.10...

then i have try every you say which inculde:
install ndiswrapper and the driver .....with no problem....
and the *.conf file are already 0 ......in /etc/ndiswrapper/bcmwl5/....
i even put ndiswrapper at the end of modules and hopedully it will make the ndiswrapper boot up it sef .....but it doesn;t work either
but how come the wireless light just doesn't turn on ......

[utopcats]

i sorry that i have forget to say i am using ferrari 4005 ....

[sithia]

I've been reading up on wireless tonight and I've managed to get wireless to scan and detect my AP but that's as far as I've gotten. Everytime I try to run iwconfig I get a warning about the version of Wireless Extension. Seems I've got v17 but I need v18. From what I can tell, this is built into the kernel so I'd need to build a new kernel from source to update this. Am I correct in this? I'm running the latest 2.6.12-10-amd64-generic (updated 5 minutes ago) and have build Wireless Tools v27 yet I still get the same warnings every time. I tried over and over to connect to my AP with iwconfig until I realized "key restricted" was trying to send a WEP key but I'm using WPA/TKIP which seems wasn't supported until v18 of Wireless Extension. I realize I could change my AP settings and run "key open" but that's not an option in my neighborhood. Way too many people crammed in here to open my bandwidth.

Can someone confirm any of this for me? Is a newer kernel with v18 built-in on the horizon anytime soon?

[fezzik]

I have now figured out what the problem was. Last time I had everything working I went a long time without redoing anything. During that time I had set up my router to stop broadcasting the essid. I not only didn't know that I had done that (it had been quite a while) but I didn't even know what the name of it was. I had changed it and Lord knows I didn't remember doing that. I went into the set up and reset all the settings and now I have wireless working beautifully. Now I can get back to the important things like getting dvd's working and mp3's and internet videos. Freaking Microsuck Monopoly.

Anyway thanks for all your help everyone. I really was starting to feel like a Linux idiot. Turns out I am just a networking idiot still. And that is ok with me.

[Llwyd]

Great post,

I have followed many instructions in this thread which seems to be working.

My issues are this do you have to use WEP encrytion for your wirless router my router set-up is currently using 'WPA-PSK' is this possible??

I have set the card up, it can scan for networks and information but I cant seem to connect to my network.

Any idears.

[Jonhoo]

Allright, pretty big Linux-newbie speaking

First of all, I just figured out I actually like tinkering around in Linux

Now, to my problem..

I have followed all of the instructions above, and have got no errors at all.. The network light on my F5D7010 is green (Not the powerlight strangely, only the traffic light which is on continously..) , and I can configure the device in the networking manager, the only problem is that the card doesn't find any networks.. I have SSID broadcasting enabled on my router which is placed a bit under 10 feet from laptop with the card...

Even if I try to set the SSID through iwconfig, the SSID simply says 'off/any' when I run iwconfig..

iwlist wlan0 scan

produces:

wlan0          No scan results

Does anyone know what may cause this to happen?

Appreciate the help
Jon

[Jefim]

Ok, everyone who didn't get this to work should first of all do a

lsmod | grep bcm

and if you see something like bcm43xx, then remove it by doing

sudo rmmod bcm43xx

And only after that do modprobe ndiswrapper. This was my problem. This bcm43xx is a kernel module for broadcom, which messes things up! It just has to be removed in order for ndiswrapper to work normally. I suppose, that this rmark could go to the front page.

[suspend]

Anyone know what this error means? I am trying to get a Broadcom to work on my Gateway 7405GX with 64bit Edubuntu(Dapper Drake).


Errhttp://archive.ubuntu.com dapper/main ndiswrapper-utils 1.8-0ubuntu2
Could not connect to archive.ubuntu.com:80 (82.211.81.182). - connect (113 No route to host) [IP: 82.211.81.182 80]
Failed to fetch http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/poo...ntu2_amd64.deb Could not connect to archive.ubuntu.com:80 (82.211.81.182). - connect (113 No route to host) [IP: 82.211.81.182 80]
E: Unable to fetch some archives, maybe run apt-get update or try with --fix-missing?

[Jefim]

suspend, I guess that this means that you don't have internet access when you try to install ndiswrapper-tools - basically it says you, that it can't contact the ubuntu downloads site (archve.ubuntu.com).

So, first of all check if you cable in plugged in correctly, if yes, start up ubuntu and go to System->Administration->Networking and chck hat you have your device enabled and activated, if not, then click Properties, check "Use this device" and select DHCP from the drop-down list (this is the most common option). Press ok, select your net device and precc "Activate". Now you should have the access to internet and be able to install packages from synaptics.

I hope that this helps.