Broadcom Wireless Setup for Hardy (Step by step)

[Feenix3k]

If "modprobe -r b44" means to remove b44 this would kill my wired conection.

I am a newbie to termanal coding, and I am not sure what -r does.

[matchstick]

thanks. i used the b43-fwcutter when i first updated to 8.04, but it seemed really slow. after some looking around i found this guide and now the internet seems to be going much faster.

for the others that have the BCM4306 (rev 3) thats what i have, and i used step 2f (the same for rev 2), and it worked fine.

[kevdog]

modprobe -r = remove module == rmmod command
mdoprobe = insert module

[togo59]

I've been trying to get this wireless thing working since November 2007! I swear I have faithfully followed every step in God knows how many tutorials*. *(see below)

I have a Viglen P4 with a Linksys wireless card using the BCM4306 chipset.

The driver file copied from Windows is BCMWL5.SYS (plus its companion, which I've called linksys.inf, since I'm told it doesn't matter what its called).

In response to $lspci -n | grep '14e4:43', I get: 14e4:4320 (rev 03)
In response to $sudo ndiswrapper - l, I get:
linksys driver installed
device (14e4:4320) present (alternative driver: bcm43xx)

Why the alternative? I read somewhere else that this was a BAD THING. But I don't know why it keeps appearing.

I am running WPA encryption as when I'm in Windows mode I can see both my neighbours' wireless networks and no doubt they can see mine.

*As a result of all these attempts, when I follow the very clear instructions in this thread, I get warnings about driver already installed etc. So could you tell me what I have to delete or undo to go back to where I can start from line 1?

Also why don't I see wlan0? only eth1? Does it matter?

The current state is, if I look at Connection Properties, eth1:avahi Disconnected

Thank you.

[alex_kent_18]

I've been trying to get this wireless thing working since November 2007! I swear I have faithfully followed every step in God knows how many tutorials*. *(see below)

I have a Viglen P4 with a Linksys wireless card using the BCM4306 chipset. In response to $lspci -n | grep '14e4:43' I get 14e4:4320 (rev 03)

The driver file copied from Windows is BCMWL5.SYS (plus its companion .inf)

I am running WPA encryption as when I'm in Windows mode I can see both my neighbours' wireless networks and no doubt they can see mine.

*As a result of all these attempts, when I follow the very clear instructions in this thread, I get warnings about driver already installed etc. So could you tell me what I have to delete or undo to go back to where I can start from line 1?

Also why don't I see wlan0? only eth1? Does it matter?

The current state is, if I look at Connection Properties, eth1:avahi Disconnected

Thank you.

Hi,

I could understand how hard you had tired during those several months and I do appreciate that you don't give up easily.

Well, for your problem, run the following commands one by one in the terminal first before you are going to start the instructions of this thread:

sudo modprobe -r ndiswrapper
sudo ndiswrapper -r bcmwl5
sudo apt-get remove ndiswrapper-utils
sudo rm -r /etc/ndiswrapper/
sudo rm -r /etc/modprobe.d/ndiswrapper

I hope to hear the good news from you soon.... Good Luck!

Best regards,
Alex Kent

[togo59]

Many thanks for your quick response. I followed all the steps, including the preliminary steps, got no errors or warnings. I remember seeing something about a wlan0 alias appearing, which filled me full of hope but it's still in the same state.

$iwconfig wlan0
no such device

Otherwise identical state to the above.

HOWEVER , I have all the time been trying to wrap the known-to-be-working-under-windows BCMWL5.SYS driver by pointing ndiswrapper at its .inf file. (As per your instructions.) I have assumed that the download step will only get me the latest driver. So that must be where I'm wrong. Since I don't have wireless, I have to keep switching between windows to get stuff and Ubuntu to try it. Long process. I will post back once I have tried again with the Step 2f driver.

[togo59]

Well, something worked! I'm not out of the woods yet but I'm pretty sure, thanks to your help, that the driver is now working.

What I did different was
sud apt-get remove ndiswrapper-util-1.9
[The -1.9 was missing before]

And I used the BCMWL5.SYS from the download plus I didn't rename the .INF file (though I'm sure that doesn't matter).

The sudo ndiswrapper -m step gave a warning about a deprecated command. However, a later iwconfig wlan0 still gave: No such device.

I am curious to know why, every time I run
sudo aptitude remove b43-fwcutter
it gets removed. How does it get put back?

I am now struggling with connectivity. The only wireless device I've managed to connect to so far is the wireless mouse!! (At least I think that's what it was.)

Now I'm on to it: The system reverts to its original state when I try to configure the network using Administration -> Network. I put in the ssid and password and all the wireless options disappear from the Network Configuration icon (two computers that get replaced by a signal strength icon).

Thanks again for your help. Now on to worry another thread about manually setting up WPA-PSK

[kevdog]

You either want nidswrapper(sys,inf) or bcm43xx. You can't have both. Id pick ndiswrapper -- the bcm43xx driver is loaded in the kernel and by default the bcm43xx driver is loaded into the kernel at boot. To prevent this process you blacklist the bcm43xx driver during ndiswrapper installation. ndiswrapper is still going to list this as an alternative driver, however b/c its not loaded, it will not conflict with ndiswrapper.

[togo59]

You either want nidswrapper(sys,inf) or bcm43xx. You can't have both. Id pick ndiswrapper -- the bcm43xx driver is loaded in the kernel and by default the bcm43xx driver is loaded into the kernel at boot. To prevent this process you blacklist the bcm43xx driver during ndiswrapper installation. ndiswrapper is still going to list this as an alternative driver, however b/c its not loaded, it will not conflict with ndiswrapper.

It IS blacklisted. I don't understand why it still says device (14e4:4320) present (alternative driver: bcm43xx)

[kevdog]

If its blacklist dont worry about it -- it will always say its an alternative driver -- its a fyi. You can always discover all the modules loaded at a given time with the
lsmod
command. If you do lsmod and dont find the bcm driver (or lsmod | grep bcm) then the module is not loaded and there will be no conflict.