Hi All,
I just installed OpenSuse 11.3 kde 64bit live cd to my acer aspire 5215 notebook.
The broadcom wireless BCM43225 does not come up at all and I have no idea how to install the driver & get it working with yast.
Any help would be appreciated.
BTW, this wifi device works fine with many other distros.
Thanks.
Do you have a wired connection available to install some packages.
Also provide me with the result of this from a terminal:
uname -a
and
zypper lr -d
Thanks for the quick reply.
I’ll try it and report back.
Here is the result:
user@linux-h74f:~> uname -a
Linux linux-h74f.site 2.6.34-12-desktop #1 SMP PREEMPT 2010-06-29 02:39:08 +0200 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
user@linux-h74f:~> zypper lr -d
–±-------------±----------------------±--------±--------±---------±-----±----------------------------------------------------------------±-------
1 | repo-debug | openSUSE-11.3-Debug | No | Yes | 99 | NONE | Index of /debug/distribution/11.3/repo/oss |
2 | repo-non-oss | openSUSE-11.3-Non-Oss | Yes | Yes | 99 | NONE | Index of /distribution/11.3/repo/non-oss |
3 | repo-oss | openSUSE-11.3-Oss | Yes | Yes | 99 | NONE | Index of /distribution/11.3/repo/oss |
4 | repo-source | openSUSE-11.3-Source | No | Yes | 99 | NONE | Index of /source/distribution/11.3/repo/oss |
5 | repo-update | openSUSE-11.3-Update | Yes | Yes | 99 | NONE | Index of /update/11.3
But do you have wired internet access to install some software?
Yup. Installing updates now.
Add packman repo like in this
How to add a repo in Terminal
Then do
zypper in broadcom-wl broadcom-wl-kmp-desktop
then reboot
added packman just as per your link.
Then added the broadcom stuff as per your command.
Now, suse won’t boot. Shows lots of errors and says something about module not correct “incorrect ioctl”.
But you just updated a load of stuff
I absolutely sure this is nothing to do with the broadcom driver
Bizzare that updates and an addition of a wifi driver would break the system…
Is there any way to boot the previous kernel??
When I installed the broadcom driver, it also installed a new kernel. Dunno why… (I’m not so smart with core things like kernels.)
Can you explain where and when this happens
Hi Caf4926,
Thanks for your coaching through this issue.
I replied already but think due to my internet connection being iffy last Friday, the post didn’t properly get stuck here so am replying again.
When I boot the updated kernel (11.3-2.6.34.7-0.2) there is text readout stating:
FATAL module processor not found
fatal module thermal not found
fatal module fan not found
and a whole bunch more stuff…
then…
sh: cannot set terminal process group (-1): Inappropriate ioctl for device
sh: no job control in this shell
I can boot into this computer via another linux distro and see the suse partition. Is there any folder/file with a boot log that I could open to copy/paste for you to see??
Thanks again. Much appreciated.
I’m not sure you wouldn’t be better starting again and re-installing
Now at least you know the A-Z of broadcom
yeah, and maybe the thing that screwed everything up was that i did the updates AND the broadcom stuff during the same session (with no reboot between updated kernel and updated broadcom drivers). So I possibly confused the system.
You’re right, now I know about the broadcom install method. Probably quicker to reinstall than to keep googling for a fix on the kernel not booting. 
I’ll post here again with results of reinstall with broadcom then additional updates after reboot.
Hi again, Caf4926.
I reinstalled. I did just the broadcom wireless install. The computer won’t boot into suse showing the same errors as posted before.
Q - Should this repo and driver work with 64 bit suse?? (I am using 64 bit)
Q - This isn’t a rant, but why on earth is it so difficult to get this wifi going with suse when a host of other distros will do it out of the box?? Suse is well respected and shouldn’t be causing such a fuss.
This is a tangent: I can understand some idealistic FOSS advocates not wanting to include non-Free software in the basic system, but the option to use proprietary software should be more easy to implement. Similar would be people who are against use of fossil fuels, and to fully implement their idealism they would have to live in homes built from hand-hewn lumber, no cement, no electricity or metal parts (fossil fuels used to make metals), no conventional fabrics for clothes, all hand-grown organic farming from organic seeds, etc.
I guess my point is that idealism must be tempered with pragmatism.
Anyway, hoping you can offer another tip to help out.
Can you boot to level 3 yast
Boot to Level 3, then Yast and More…
Navigate to software management and delete the the broadcom driver packages?
Does that let you boot now?
When you installed the drivers, did you notice if it dragged anything else in with it?
If you manage to remove them and all is well, you try again with the b43, by doing
sudo /usr/sbin/install_bcm43xx_firmware
I was, similar to before, able to boot by choosing a different kernel to boot from at the grub menu. (For some reason, the install of the broadcom also installs a new kernel, as posted earlier.)
Although I googled and searched this forum, I can’t find how to check for a log of what was installed. Can you coach me on this, then I can see if other extraneous stuff was pulled in too.
Thanks.
/var/log/zypp/history
To see what was installed
Install Broadcom Drivers from Packman
Installing does not install more kernels, unless you do it wrong.
Here is a quote from the log after I installed the distro:
QUOTING LOG:
2010-09-29 11:55:29|radd |repo-debug|Index of /debug/distribution/11.3/repo/oss
2010-09-29 11:55:29|radd |repo-source|Index of /source/distribution/11.3/repo/oss
2010-10-01 07:02:13|radd |packman|http://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/mixc/packman/suse/11.3/
2010-10-01 07:05:35|radd |packman2|Index of /pub/linux/misc/packman/suse/11.3
2010-10-01 07:06:59|install|kernel-desktop-base|2.6.34.7-0.3.1|x86_64||repo-update|3edce2ba6e0b9d19d110acf21445838244f5d6f9
2010-10-01 07:07:19|install|broadcom-wl-kmp-desktop|5.60.48.36_k2.6.34.7_0.3-7.pm.8.7|x86_64|root@linux-wzs4.site|packman2|3c0319d5e701e768da86d31574526af43e463ee2
2010-10-01 12:56:00|install|gstreamer-0_10-fluendo-mp3|2-106.2|x86_64||repo-non-oss|163172a3175223e46978b20762a6321b9513ce5c
2010-10-01 12:56:07|install|poppler-data|0.4.0-3.1|noarch||repo-non-oss|a593cc2034da0894257cf21207492a25d0a8ecd9
2010-10-01 12:59:21|install|broadcom-wl|5.60.48.36-7.pm.8.7|x86_64|root@linux-wzs4.site|packman2|7731691e669f7c3791b78dfca18a812b7f7531bc
2010-10-01 13:00:00|rremove|packman
2010-10-01 13:03:01|remove |broadcom-wl|5.60.48.36-7.pm.8.7|x86_64|root@linux-wzs4.site
2010-10-01 13:03:19|remove |broadcom-wl-kmp-desktop|5.60.48.36_k2.6.34.7_0.3-7.pm.8.7|x86_64|root@linux-wzs4.site
END QUOTE
I did nothing at all to install a new kernel, yet the new kernel install is shown in the log. Very, very bizarre.
This happened both times I did it, and I swear 100% I did not send instructions to install a new kernel. I did just your command (zypper … broadcom…).
This, IMHO, is some sort of a bug in the system.
Lost wifi connectivity trying the /usr/sbin/install… command as you instructed.
So I don’t know how to uninstall this firmware that doesn’t work.
So I tried to reinstall the initial WORKING drivers you instructed me to do (zypper in …etc), and here is the readout. (Again, it shows the kernel that screwed up the boot.)
QUOTE:
linux-wzs4:~ # zypper in broadcom-wl broadcom-wl-kmp-desktop
Loading repository data…
Reading installed packages…
Resolving package dependencies…
The following NEW packages are going to be installed:
broadcom-wl broadcom-wl-kmp-desktop
2 new packages to install.
Overall download size: 694.0 KiB. After the operation, additional 3.3 MiB will be used.
Continue? [y/n/?] (y): y
Retrieving package broadcom-wl-kmp-desktop-5.60.48.36_k2.6.34.7_0.3-7.pm.8.7.x86_64 (1/2), 680.0 KiB (3.2 MiB unpacked)
Retrieving: broadcom-wl-kmp-desktop-5.60.48.36_k2.6.34.7_0.3-7.pm.8.7.x86_64.rpm [done (224.6 KiB/s)]
Installing: broadcom-wl-kmp-desktop-5.60.48.36_k2.6.34.7_0.3-7.pm.8.7 [done]
Additional rpm output:
warning: /var/cache/zypp/packages/packman2/x86_64/broadcom-wl-kmp-desktop-5.60.48.36_k2.6.34.7_0.3-7.pm.8.7.x86_64.rpm: Header V3 DSA/SHA1 Signature, key ID 9a795806: NOKEY
Retrieving package broadcom-wl-5.60.48.36-7.pm.8.7.x86_64 (2/2), 14.0 KiB (25.0 KiB unpacked)
Retrieving: broadcom-wl-5.60.48.36-7.pm.8.7.x86_64.rpm [done]
Installing: broadcom-wl-5.60.48.36-7.pm.8.7 [done]
Additional rpm output:
warning: /var/cache/zypp/packages/packman2/x86_64/broadcom-wl-5.60.48.36-7.pm.8.7.x86_64.rpm: Header V3 DSA/SHA1 Signature, key ID 9a795806: NOKEY
ENDQUOTE
So it certainly seems like there is a kernel update contained above.
I really want to give OpenSuse a fair try, but it is pretty easy to be pessimistic if I can’t even get a wifi module going without having this host of problems.
Anyway, as stated before, I really appreciate your helping hand and coaching through this problem.
D.