Wifi (Broadcom 4312) unrecognized on Dell Studio 1735

[samig]

Hi there.

Has anybody suggestions on how to enable the wifi (Broadcom 4312, I think) on a Dell Studio 1735. Previous version (SuSE 11.0, 64-bit) failed. I was hoping to bypass the problem with SuSE 11.1 (64-bit). But the system seems unaware of the presence of the wifi card. Do I need to download the hybrid driver by Broadcom and try to compile the module? I recall that my previous efords to compile older releases by Broadcom fail hard with compilation errors.

Any help deeply appreciated.

Thank you in advance.

PS. I tried live CDs from different distros, all but Ubuntu fail on this matter. But Ubuntu is something I never used before and I wouldn't like to change to a non-rpm system.

[Fisiu]

Your card is supported by kernel out-of-box. You need to download firmware to get card working

Connect laptop to internet via ethernet cable & type as root in terminal:

/usr/sbin/install_bcm43xx_firmware

[lwfinger]

Fisiu wrote:
> Your card is supported by kernel out-of-box. You need to download
> firmware to get card working
>
> Connect laptop to internet via ethernet cable & type as root in
> terminal:
>
> Code:
> --------------------
> /usr/sbin/install_bcm43xx_firmware
> --------------------

The above is good advice, but it may not work. Unfortunately, Broadcom (the
bastards) have labeled two very different cards with the BCM4312 label. The only
way to tell the difference is with the '/sbin/lspci -n | grep 14e4'. If the
number that follows the 14e4 in the output is 4312, then driver b43 will work
and the firmware installation above will fix your interface. If the number is
4315, then b43 will not work. That device needs ndiswrapper or the Broadcom
hybrid driver.

Larry