OK, I’m not new to Linux, and I’m not at all afraid of the command line, in fact, I love it
I’ve been using Ubuntu for about a year continuously now, and I’m becoming a little tired of it, and want something different, so here I am giving OpenSUSE 11.2 a try…
I use Linux on my laptop, and with Ubuntu 8.10 and 9.04, my wireless worked out-of-box, with 9.10, I had to install the bcm43 package, easy enough.
With OpenSUSE, my wireless isn’t working, and I have no idea what RPM package to install, and I have almost zero experience with RPM packages and their management tools…
I’m totally lost, and as of now running Linux on my laptop is useless because I can’t get online without attaching an ethernet cable!
Connect via a cabled connection - download broadcom_wl and all should work fine (after a couple of reboots 1 to install drivers and one to get wep/wpa working).
On 11/09/2009 12:56 AM, redbook4574 wrote:
>
> Connect via a cabled connection - download broadcom_wl and all should
> work fine (after a couple of reboots 1 to install drivers and one to get
> wep/wpa working).
novafluxx: You may need to use the Broadcom wl package, and you may not. It
depends on your device, which is why you were asked to supply the details of
your device. The downside of using the wl driver is that it will break every
time your kernel is updated. That is one of the consequences of using an
out-of-kernel driver. If your device is one of the Broadcom devices supported by
driver b43, then you only need to install firmware ONCE. That part is not
kernel dependent!!!
To install firmware, connect to the Internet using a wired connection, open a
terminal and enter the following commands:
If your device will work with b43, you should see your AP in the output of the
iwlist command. At that point, use the “Manage Connections” item in the applet
menu and create the connection.
On 11/09/2009 07:26 PM, novafluxx wrote:
>
> 0c:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g (rev
> 01)
>
>
> Thats what my Dell has. I did as you suggested, and installed the
> firmware, but nothing’s worked. I’m on ethernet at the moment…
If you had read the stickies, you would know that you need to get the PCI IDs in
order to know what you have. I am quite certain that yours is a 4315.
As I said before, you might need the Broadcom wl driver, and you might not. For
the 4315, you do need it. Get the broadcom-wl package, blacklist ssb and b43,
and you should be able to configure and connect. Your only other alternative is
to download the 2.6.32-rc6 sources and build that kernel. It works with the
4315. I am using that kernel with a 4315 right now.
I appreciate your replies and assistance. So am I correct in thinking that Broadcom drivers will be opensouce and included in the 2.6.32 and higher kernels? I’ve actually thought about buying a new wireless card for my system to avoid this.
Are Intel cards good? What would be the best solution?
On 11/09/2009 10:06 PM, novafluxx wrote:
> I appreciate your replies and assistance. So am I correct in thinking
> that Broadcom drivers will be opensouce and included in the 2.6.32 and
> higher kernels? I’ve actually thought about buying a new wireless card
> for my system to avoid this.
>
> Are Intel cards good? What would be the best solution?
The b43 driver for several Broadcom devices is open source. The newest code,
which is in the 2.6.32 kernel, supports the 4315 model. Earlier versions do not.
I cannot offer any opinions on the Intel cards as I have no experience with them.
I just don’t like dealing with these issues. I’ve tried the firmware install method as it was proposed. I couldn’t find a broadcom-wl package, I did zypper se broadcom-wl and it returned no results.
So what should I install since the firmware process and stuff didn’t work.
On 11/10/2009 08:36 PM, novafluxx wrote:
>
> I just don’t like dealing with these issues. I’ve tried the firmware
> install method as it was proposed. I couldn’t find a broadcom-wl
> package, I did zypper se broadcom-wl and it returned no results.
>
> So what should I install since the firmware process and stuff didn’t
> work.
>
> Does OpenSUSE not use DKMS like Ubuntu does?
I have no idea what DKMS is, but only distros that are running 2.6.32-rcX
kernels will support the 4315. If you don’t believe me, take a while to review
my credentials.
You were right about it being a 4315. So what drivers do I need to install to get this to work, since the firmware thing you suggested won’t work on this chip.
Others have suggested a package called broadcom-wl, but I’ve not been able to find that.
I’ve used Ubuntu for a year on this same system, and always was able to easily get online, usually out-of-box, but with 9.10, I had to install a single package. There’s gotta be an easy way in OpenSUSE to get this to work. I refuse to believe Canonical did something that Novell can’t do!
On 11/10/2009 09:36 PM, novafluxx wrote:
>
> lwfinger;2063358 Wrote:
>> On 11/10/2009 08:36 PM, novafluxx wrote:
>>>
>>> I just don’t like dealing with these issues. I’ve tried the firmware
>>> install method as it was proposed. I couldn’t find a broadcom-wl
>>> package, I did zypper se broadcom-wl and it returned no results.
>>>
>>> So what should I install since the firmware process and stuff didn’t
>>> work.
>>>
>>> Does OpenSUSE not use DKMS like Ubuntu does?
>>
>> I have no idea what DKMS is, but only distros that are running
>> 2.6.32-rcX
>> kernels will support the 4315. If you don’t believe me, take a while to
>> review
>> my credentials.
>
> ‘Dynamic Kernel Module Support - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia’
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_Kernel_Module_Support)
ALL Linux kernels support dynamic module loading. It is not a feature of any distro.
> You were right about it being a 4315. So what drivers do I need to
> install to get this to work, since the firmware thing you suggested
> won’t work on this chip.
>
> Others have suggested a package called broadcom-wl, but I’ve not been
> able to find that.
>
> I’ve used Ubuntu for a year on this same system, and always was able to
> easily get online, usually out-of-box, but with 9.10, I had to install a
> single package. There’s gotta be an easy way in OpenSUSE to get this to
> work. I refuse to believe Canonical did something that Novell can’t do!
What Canonical did is to install a package called compat-wireless. That package
was available in the Packman repo, but is no longer available. Your options all
include building some piece of code. They are (1) Download a 2.6.32-rcX kernel
and build it, (2) Get the compat-wireless from http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Download and build it, or (3) Get the
broadcom-wl sources by searching at http://packages.opensuse-community.org/. The
2.6.32 kernel is available on the Factory repo; however, whomever configured
that kernel did not enable the 4315 code. That was stupid.
I’m going to try it all again with 11.2 final tomorrow. I’m also taking the advice above, and install 11.2 final, then update to factory for the 2.6.32 kernel, and compile it myself if need be
On 11/11/2009 08:06 PM, novafluxx wrote:
>
> I’m going to try it all again with 11.2 final tomorrow. I’m also taking
> the advice above, and install 11.2 final, then update to factory for the
> 2.6.32 kernel, and compile it myself if need be
I would not update to factory, but download the 2.6.32-rc6 sources from kernel.org. This way you will still have the standard 2.6.31 kernel available.
Remember that an update from factory will overwrite the previous kernel.
After you get the kernel sources untarred, cd to that directory and do the
following:
cp /proc/config.gz .
gunzip config.gz
cp config .config
make xconfig
The first 3 of those commands will copy the configuration of the running kernel
to the configuration file for the new one. The final step will bring up the
configuration utility. In it, you need to go to Device drivers => Wireless LAN
section. Under Broadcom 43xx wireless support, select Support for low-power
(LP-PHY) devices.
Once you have saved the configuration, then enter the following:
make -jX
sudo make modules_install install
Once the above steps are complete without error, the new kernel will be
available in the GRUB menu.
One final word of caution: DO NOT build the new kernel as root - it must be done
as a normal user.
