Broadcom Wireless issues in F17

illystor · #1 22nd July 2012, 07:08 PM

Disclaimer: I almost definitely should not be using Linux. I likely lack the general competence needed.

Installed Fedora 17 on an old Dell 1535 which I believe uses the Dell 1379 Wireless Mini-Card which is Broadcom manufactured.

When installation was complete I had no wireless functionality with it informing me that firmware was missing when in Network Settings.

I looked around for some information. I tried blacklisting bcma and b43 modules as I saw recommended as a solution on one website however this did nothing to improve the situation.

Elsewhere I found http://www.howopensource.com/2011/08...-fedora-15-14/

And followed the instructions without any issues, however upon rebooting I found that rather than having rectified the problem, I now did not even have the luxury of a Wireless option in Network Settings with firmware missing but instead had no wireless option at all.

I appreciate any help and guidance anyone can provide and I'll do my best to answer questions and provide additional information when it's requested but as I say... perhaps I'm not best suited to Linux.

Regards,
David

stoat · #2 22nd July 2012, 10:36 PM

Well, that link you posted was to instructions to install the RPM Fusion version of the Broadcom 802.11 STA Linux driver. But not every Broadcom device works with that. I recommend that you start over by identifying your wireless chipset with certainty. If it uses the PCI bus, then this may give the information...

Code:

lspci

Return here to copy and paste the part of that command's output that identifies a Broadcom network controller.

illystor · #3 22nd July 2012, 11:50 PM

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile PM965/GM965/GL960 Memory Controller Hub (rev 03)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile PM965/GM965/GL960 PCI Express Root Port (rev 03)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 03)
00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 03)
00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 03)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 4 (rev 03)
00:1c.5 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 6 (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev f3)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801HEM (ICH8M) LPC Interface Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) SATA AHCI Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 03)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Mobility Radeon HD 3400 Series
01:00.1 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc RV620 Audio device [Radeon HD 34xx Series]
03:01.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Ricoh Co Ltd R5C832 IEEE 1394 Controller (rev 05)
03:01.1 SD Host controller: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C822 SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro Host Adapter (rev 22)
03:01.2 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C592 Memory Stick Bus Host Adapter (rev 12)
03:01.3 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd xD-Picture Card Controller (rev 12)
09:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetLink BCM5784M Gigabit Ethernet PCIe (rev 10)
0c:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY (rev 01)

stoat · #4 23rd July 2012, 12:52 AM

That Broadcom chipset is well-known around here. It can work with either b43 or broadcom-wl. You said that you already installed broadcom-wl (aka kmod-wl, aka wl, aka Broadcom 802.11 STA Linux driver). So you can try troubleshooting that, or you can un-blacklist b43 and try installing the firmware for it. I recommend the latter. Here's why... The BCM4312 often works very well with b43 once the appropriate firmware for it is installed. And if that happens for you, then you would be free and independent of drivers in repos that are subject to frequent updates to keep up with new kernels (e.g., broadcom-wl). It's up to you, of course.

If you want to try b43, then...

Undo the blacklisting that you did for b43 (important for this to work). Then reboot and check the output of this terminal command to see if b43 is being loaded...

Code:

lsmod | sort

If b43 is not listed there, then you also may need to yum remove kmod-wl. You can easily re-install it if this goes nowhere.
If b43 is listed there, then open a terminal and run these commands to install the firmware for b43 (copy and paste them directly into your terminal)...

Code:

wget http://downloads.openwrt.org/sources/broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5.tar.bz2
tar xjf broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5.tar.bz2
cd broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5/driver	
su
b43-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware wl_apsta_mimo.o

Don't be afraid. The only things those do are 1) download a proprietary Broadcom driver file, 2) untar it, 3) extract the firmware files from it, and 4) copy them to the folder /lib/firmware/b43. Nothing more. Later, if this idea is a bust, you can undo all of this by simply deleting the /lib/firmware/b43 subfolder.

Anyway, if all of that completed without problems, then reboot and check NetworkManager for available networks and try to connect.

If you decided to troubleshoot broadcom-wl, then...

Open a terminal and start with these queries to identify the currently running kernel and what you installed for it from RPM Fusion, and to confirm that the wl module is being loaded...

Code:

uname -r
rpm -qa | grep -e kernel -e broadcom-wl -e kmod-wl | sort
lsmod | grep wl

Return here and post all of that stuff.

lightman47 · #5 23rd July 2012, 06:22 PM

I got my Dell laptop with a different Broadcom 43-- working rather easily. During bootup, I watched the messages and there was one telling me what Website to go for the latest driver. I went there and found directions kinda screwy (they tried to cover all derivations in on set of instructions), but I downloaded the recommended file, ran it as root, and my light came on/worked fine. I wish I could remember the Web site address. Perhaps it's in /var/log/message ... ???

bbfuller · #6 23rd July 2012, 11:50 PM

Possibly:

http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/b43

It's pretty comprehensive.

For the original query, it might also be interesting to see the output of:

Code:

lspci -k

I had a case recently where the 4312 wireless card was being claimed by "b43-pci-bridge". Then, it was necessary to blacklist several modules before the "wl" driver would work.

This thread:

http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showth...=188012&page=3

post #21 has the details.

lightman47 · #7 24th July 2012, 12:21 AM

Can't remember the site (but that wasn't it) - I had to blacklist/enable nothing - just download & run ... I'll do some research on that machine in the next couple days to see if I can find the site URL.

kc1di · #8 24th July 2012, 01:32 AM

install broadcom-wl from rpm fusion you have to make sure it's for the kernel your running
you can find that out from running the following command in terminal

Code:

uname -r

Them make sure that kmod-wl is for that same kernel.

now after you get those installed Black list the following

ssb
b43

Reboot and you should be good to go.

bbfuller · #9 24th July 2012, 08:43 AM

Code:

I had to blacklist/enable nothing - just download & run

Quite possibly not. The blacklist part only becomes necessary if you have the particular combination of a broadcom wireless card and a broadcom wired ethernet, which appears to be the case for the OP.