openSUSE 11 and bcm43xx-fwcutter/ndiswrapper?

[miggols99]

I've had a look at openSUSE 10.3 in the past and it was really nice, except the package management was lacking...it was extremely slow! I've heard that openSUSE 11 has 400% faster package management (or something like that) and it has KDE4 by default. So I thought that I could install it on my new computer I'm going to build with my dad. My dad asked me to teach him a bit about Linux and I decided that openSUSE 11 with KDE4 would be easiest to teach.

Anyway, for any of this to happen, I'm going to need internet access. There isn't a wired connection. It wireless only, and it's a broadcom based card, meaning I'll have to use bcm43xx-fwcutter or ndiswrapper. I'm just wondering if any of these two (preferably ndiswrapper, because it works better) are there on the KDE4 installation CD by default...

[Joban]

Ndiswrapper was installed by default by the KDE4 live disc on my laptop, using the 11.0 RC1 disc. So I would think it safe to assume that the final release will also include it

[miggols99]

That was fast

Thanks, that means it will definately work for me

Also just wondering, will openSUSE 11 use sudo by default or will it use su?

[some-guy]

Originally Posted by miggols99

Anyway, for any of this to happen, I'm going to need internet access. There isn't a wired connection. It wireless only, and it's a broadcom based card, meaning I'll have to use bcm43xx-fwcutter or ndiswrapper. I'm just wondering if any of these two (preferably ndiswrapper, because it works better) are there on the KDE4 installation CD by default...

b43 and b43-legacy are the successors of bcm43xx, and should work fine, simply install b43-fwcutter, then
Get the right firmware, extract it, and run

su
b43-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware firmwarefile.o

then reboot, and Network Manager Should work with your card

[miggols99]

Cool, seems a lot more simpler than ndiswrapper Is this "b43-cutter" included with the KDE4 CD?

[some-guy]

It's available in the standard repo, but here's the links to the RPM's anyway
32-bit
64-bit

[quickshade]

use the B43 driver as mentioned above, I was using Ndiswrapper because it worked, but now that I switched I'm happy to say that b43 works and is way faster for me, plus skips the "configuring" step now. Once you install fwcutter run these comands to get wireless.

Use version 4.150.10.5 of Broadcom's proprietary driver.
Download and extract the firmware from this driver tarball:

export FIRMWARE_INSTALL_DIR="/lib/firmware"
wget http://mirror2.openwrt.org/sources/b...0.10.5.tar.bz2
tar xjf broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5.tar.bz2
cd broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5/driver
sudo ../../b43-fwcutter-011/b43-fwcutter -w "$FIRMWARE_INSTALL_DIR" wl_apsta_mimo.o

[miggols99]

I've finished building the computer! And now openSUSE 11 is on here running fine mostly.

I've gotten the wireless to work, but for some reason, only unencrypted internet is working. And I want WPA-PSK to work..I can detect wireless networks fine...

miggols99 wrote:
> I've finished building the computer! And now openSUSE 11 is on here
> running fine mostly.
>
> I've gotten the wireless to work, but for some reason, only unencrypted
> internet is working. And I want WPA-PSK to work..I can detect wireless
> networks fine...

Do you have a Broadcom device? If so, and it works with unencrypted
networks, it should work with WEP, WPA and WPA2.

Larry

[barryhenry76]

I followed the steps above to activate my wlan card on a laptop that I just got. I installed OS 11 today and after following the above mentioned, I got the blue light on the laptop to come on, I just can't see any wireless networks. For my other laptop w/ a broadcom bcm 43xx and OS 10.3 I have to use wifi-radar, knetworkmanager won't work...do I maybe need another program?