After installation of broadcom driver the wlan-device simply disappeared

Hello,

I have a broadcom-1937 wlan. Can’t get more information, since after installing the broadcom-wl package,
which by default included broadcom-default, the wlan-information disappeared from the hardware list:

root-0:kullmann> uname -a
Linux linux-vp82.site 2.6.37.6-0.5-desktop #1 SMP PREEMPT 2011-04-25 21:48:33 +0200 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
root-0:kullmann> hwinfo --wlan --short
root-0:kullmann>

(that is, nothing there; in the Yast-overview it was there before, but it also disappeared now).
It worked with 11.3 (while now I have installed 11.4, fresh installation).

I have installed

b43-fwcutter
broadcom-wl
broadcom-wl-kmp-default

All in the versions from packman.

Oliver

On 07/12/2011 11:36 AM, kullmann wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> I have a broadcom-1937 wlan. Can’t get more information, since after
> installing the broadcom-wl package,
> which by default included broadcom-default, the wlan-information
> disappeared from the hardware list:
>
> root-0:kullmann> uname -a
> Linux linux-vp82.site 2.6.37.6-0.5-desktop #1 SMP PREEMPT 2011-04-25
> 21:48:33 +0200 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
> root-0:kullmann> hwinfo --wlan --short
> root-0:kullmann>
>
> (that is, nothing there; in the Yast-overview it was there before, but
> it also disappeared now).
> It worked with 11.3 (while now I have installed 11.4, fresh
> installation).
>
> I have installed
>
> b43-fwcutter
> broadcom-wl
> broadcom-wl-kmp-default
>
> All in the versions from packman.

If you really want to use wl, then you need to blacklist ssb and b43.

If you want to use b43 (recommended for the 1397), then install the firmware.
The b43-fwcutter package installs the pieces needed to install firmware. Due to
Broadcom’s restrictive practices, the firmware cannot be redistributed. To do this,


sudo /usr/sbin/install_bcm43xx_firmware

You will need a network connection to accomplish the above step.

Thank you. Now should I de-install broadcom-wl and broadcom-wl-kmp-default? I fear that will create trouble, since it installed some kernel version (and apparently also Radeon stuff)?
Or can I ignore broadcom-wl etc.? Hm, the laptop just crashed (frozen); let’s hope the best.

On 07/12/2011 02:06 PM, kullmann wrote:
>
> Thank you. Now should I de-install broadcom-wl and
> broadcom-wl-kmp-default? I fear that will create trouble, since it
> installed some kernel version (and apparently also Radeon stuff)?
> Or can I ignore broadcom-wl etc.? Hm, the laptop just crashed (frozen);
> let’s hope the best.

You can deinstall wl if you want, but b43/ssb will keep it from loading.

Installing broadcom-wl etc had the side effect that now the graphics-support work. And with 11.3 we never
got the Radeon-stuff to work (had to reinstall the system several times, until we gave up).
That’s nice.

So I’m inclined to try out whether broadcom-wl can do the job. So I want to de-install b43-fwcutter, and I guess
that wouldn’t have unindented consequences?

Thanks for your help!

Oliver

Install Broadcom Drivers from Packman

Normally it’s installation automatically adds any needed blacklists

On 07/13/2011 06:36 AM, kullmann wrote:
>
> Installing broadcom-wl etc had the side effect that now the
> graphics-support work. And with 11.3 we never
> got the Radeon-stuff to work (had to reinstall the system several
> times, until we gave up).
> That’s nice.

That is not a side effect of wl. It is a matter of having a later kernel.

> So I’m inclined to try out whether broadcom-wl can do the job. So I
> want to de-install b43-fwcutter, and I guess
> that wouldn’t have unindented consequences?

It doesn’t matter whether you uninstall or leave b43-fwcutter alone. IT IS NOT a
driver. It has no more effect of running systems than any other utility. Its
only purpose is to extract Broadcom firmware.

lwfinger wrote:
> That is not a side effect of wl. It is a matter of having a later kernel.

But a new kernel was installed with the installation of broadcom-wl (I find it strange, that such a radical thing
is hidden in the installation of another package). And during that installation also Radeon-stuff was installed
(watching the messages). Hm, perhaps the Radeon-installation (apparently xorg-x11-driver-video-radeonhd)
was dragged in by some other package?? But for sure, after installation of broadcom-wl I had to reboot, and
a new kernel showed up on the boot-menu. The kernel I guess came with broadcom-wl-kmp-default.

I wanted to see what /usr/sbin/install_bcm43xx_firmware says to “–help”, and then, so well, it installed that firmware.
Now the Yast hardware information lists the “Wireless 1397 WLAN Mini-Card” again, and regarding drivers
it says “Active: No; modprobe: Yes; modules modprobe ssb”.

So apparently all what is needed now is to activate that driver?

Regarding that blacklisting-issue: in /etc/modprobe.d there is no file blacklist.conf.

I am now confused. Looking at www.broadcom.com/docs/linux_sta/README.txt
it says that b43 and ssb are other open-source drivers, which will conflict
their driver and thus must be removed. But I thought that ssb and b43 would come
with the firmware, and thus are associated with Broadcom? Or is “wl” also from
Broadcom?

I would be helpful for some concrete proposals what to do now. There is a lot
of noise on the Internet on these things, but I don’t get any coherent picture
(as usual in such things). There was a discussion August 2010 for 11.3,
but there are no conclusions or results. Just the thing that there are various
possibilities.

Thanks for your help!

Oliver

On 07/13/2011 11:06 AM, kullmann wrote:
>
> lwfinger wrote:
>> That is not a side effect of wl. It is a matter of having a later
> kernel.
>
> But a new kernel was installed with the installation of broadcom-wl (I
> find it strange, that such a radical thing
> is hidden in the installation of another package). And during that
> installation also Radeon-stuff was installed
> (watching the messages). Hm, perhaps the Radeon-installation
> (apparently xorg-x11-driver-video-radeonhd)
> was dragged in by some other package?? But for sure, after installation
> of broadcom-wl I had to reboot, and
> a new kernel showed up on the boot-menu. The kernel I guess came with
> broadcom-wl-kmp-default.
>
> I wanted to see what /usr/sbin/install_bcm43xx_firmware says to
> “–help”, and then, so well, it installed that firmware.
> Now the Yast hardware information lists the “Wireless 1397 WLAN
> Mini-Card” again, and regarding drivers
> it says “Active: No; modprobe: Yes; modules modprobe ssb”.
>
> So apparently all what is needed now is to activate that driver?
>
> Regarding that blacklisting-issue: in /etc/modprobe.d there is no file
> blacklist.conf.

It is named 50-blacklist.conf.

> I am now confused. Looking at
> www.broadcom.com/docs/linux_sta/README.txt
> it says that b43 and ssb are other open-source drivers, which will
> conflict
> their driver and thus must be removed. But I thought that ssb and b43
> would come
> with the firmware, and thus are associated with Broadcom? Or is “wl”
> also from
> Broadcom?

Drivers b43 and ssb are part of the kernel. They do not come with the firmware,
but with the kernel package itself. To be part of the kernel, the driver must be
open source. The wl driver is not. As open-source drivers, ssb and b43 have been
reverse-engineered from Broadcom drivers, but they have no connection with
Broadcom. In fact, Broadcom placed as many restrictions as possible to prevent
the development of those drivers. Most of those restrictions are irrelevant
except for prohibiting the redistribution of firmware.

> I would be helpful for some concrete proposals what to do now. There is
> a lot
> of noise on the Internet on these things, but I don’t get any coherent
> picture
> (as usual in such things). There was a discussion August 2010 for 11.3,
> but there are no conclusions or results. Just the thing that there are
> various
> possibilities.

You may choose either ssb/b43 or wl. If you select the latter, then every time
your kernel gets updated, then you will need to be sure to also get the
appropriate -kmp- wl package, otherwise your wifi will break. Loading wl also
taints your kernel because a closed-source binary is being loaded. There may not
be any effect; however, if you discover a kernel bug that causes an oops, most
kernel developers will not even look at the problem until you repeat it without
any tainting of the kernel.

As a developer of b43, I refuse to use wl.

Sure, seems the right choice to use ssb or b43.
Still, I must admit that I don’t know how to use them. It seems everything is installed,
but not "activated* yet.

And then the new kernel installed via that wl-thing is then something I should get
rid off, and, moreover, its removal won’t cause any harm, right?

Thanks again!

Oliver

On 07/13/2011 02:36 PM, kullmann wrote:
>
> Sure, seems the right choice to use ssb or b43.
> Still, I must admit that I don’t know how to use them. It seems
> everything is installed,
> but not "activated* yet.
>
> And then the new kernel installed via that wl-thing is then something I
> should get
> rid off, and, moreover, its removal won’t cause any harm, right?

You can uninstall all the broadcom-wl packages. If you are using b43, then it is
not used.

Activation of b43 is not necessary. Have you installed the firmware with


sudo /usr/sbin/install_b43xx_firmware

You may check that with ‘dmesg | grep firmware’ or by looking for files in
/lib/firmware/b43/.

The other thing to check is to see if your wireless switch is on.

Does your wireless interface show in /usr/sbin/iwconfig?

Any APs show in ‘sudo /usr/sbin/iwlist scan’?

Surely if your kernel is the desktop variant, you need the desktop variant of broadcom-wl as well?

Okay, I de-installed broadcom-wl and broadcom-wl-kmp-default.
The new kernel 11.4 - 2.6.37.6-0.5 stayed, but I guess I shall use the old kernel
11.4-2.6.37.1-1.2 ?

Now it works.

Thanks in any case!

Oliver

On 07/13/2011 04:36 PM, kullmann wrote:
>
> Okay, I de-installed broadcom-wl and broadcom-wl-kmp-default.
> The new kernel 11.4 - 2.6.37.6-0.5 stayed, but I guess I shall use the
> old kernel
> 11.4-2.6.37.1-1.2 ?
>
> Now it works.
>
> Thanks in any case!

You can use any kernel you want. The correct version of b43 is built into every one.

Hello,

just a quick update: I noticed that at hotels I didn’t get connection, or connection was cut off after
getting it working for, say, a minute, but I thought that would be just bad luck.
Now I experimented more thoroughly, at a place where I had a completely stable connection under Windows 7,
while already establishiing the initial connection under Linux (b43) took some time, connection was slow, and then
was cut off after say one minute and could nearly never be re-established.
So for my card, b43 doesn’t work:

root-0> lspci -vnn | grep 14e4
04:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY [14e4:4315] (rev 01)

which according to

b43 - Linux Wireless

is only “partially supported”. Thus I installed the driver from
Broadcom.com - 802.11 Linux STA driver (together with the patch!),
where documentation is at

http://www.broadcom.com/docs/linux_sta/README.txt

I did not use the broadcom-wl package, since this seems to install also another
kernel, and I don’t want to mess with that, while I have a kernel which can handle
the broadcom driver:

> uname -a
Linux linux-vp82.site 2.6.38.8-0.5-desktop #1 SMP PREEMPT Fri Jul 29 00:59:42 BST 2011 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Now the wireless connection works perfectly.

Oliver

On 07/29/2011 08:46 AM, kullmann wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> just a quick update: I noticed that at hotels I didn’t get connection,
> or connection was cut off after
> getting it working for, say, a minute, but I thought that would be just
> bad luck.
> Now I experimented more thoroughly, at a place where I had a completely
> stable connection under Windows 7,
> while already establishiing the initial connection under Linux (b43)
> took some time, connection was slow, and then
> was cut off after say one minute and could nearly never be
> re-established.
> So for my card, b43 doesn’t work:
>
> root-0> lspci -vnn | grep 14e4
> 04:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312
> 802.11b/g LP-PHY [14e4:4315] (rev 01)
>
> which according to
>
> ‘b43 - Linux Wireless’ (http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/b43)
>
> is only “partially supported”. Thus I installed the driver from
> ‘Broadcom.com - 802.11 Linux STA driver’
> (http://www.broadcom.com/support/802.11/linux_sta.php) (together with
> the patch!),
> where documentation is at
>
> http://www.broadcom.com/docs/linux_sta/README.txt
>
> I did not use the broadcom-wl package, since this seems to install also
> another
> kernel, and I don’t want to mess with that, while I have a kernel which
> can handle
> the broadcom driver:
>
>> uname -a
> Linux linux-vp82.site 2.6.38.8-0.5-desktop #1 SMP PREEMPT Fri Jul 29
> 00:59:42 BST 2011 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
>
> Now the wireless connection works perfectly.

Support of BCM4312 802.11b/g models has greatly improved since kernel 2.6.37.
Not only has the stability been improved, but with kernel 3.0 the DMA problems
have been solved. Once openSUSE 12.1 is released, there will be no need to use
wl for this device.

You could have installed the compat-wireless package.

I’m looking forward then to Suse 12.1 (hopefully a lot of other problems will then be solved – so much doesn’t work).
Now that I got the wl-driver working, I don’t want to try compat-wireless, but thanks for mentioning it.

I just wanted to complete the solution using the wl-driver, namely how to “register” the driver:

  1. After having compiled it, one gets the file wl.ko. Using as root

driver-build-directory> insmod wl.ko

activates the driver.

  1. To get that activation automatically performed on boot,
    first the driver is moved to its standard place:

/lib/modules/2.6.38.8-0.5-desktop/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/wl.ko

where “2.6.38.8-0.5-desktop” is to be replaced by the appropriate kernel-version.

Then via

depmode -a

(as root) one makes this new file (driver) known.

Finally, in Yast via the /etc/sysconfig editor to variable MODULES_LOADED_ON_BOOT, found
in section System/Kernel, add “wl” (if there are other modules, separate by space).

Oliver