BroadCom Wireless Questions --Easy Answers

English Network/Internet
#1

Hello. I am running opensuse from my thumbdrive, because I’m not allowed to partition disk space after I had to repair our other OS…

Anyways, I looked at the sticky (the one called “My wireless doesn’t work- a primer” and ran the commands it told me. I was wondering if anyone could help me out.

My WLAN device: Broadcom BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY rev 01

I then ran dmesg, and used the find command to look up where my Broadcom BCM4312 showed up. It said (in the terminal) that I needed to install some missing firmware, and to run a command “sudo /usr/sbin/install_bcm43xx_firmware”. I run this, and it says it installs successfully. When I log back in, I can run dmesg again and it says I need the firmware…again. Help here?

The next thing the sticky said to do was run /usr/sbin/iwconfig and see what it told me. Results:
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

wlan0 IEEE 802.11bg ESSID:off/any
Mode:Managed Access Point: Not-Associated Tx-Power=0 dBm
Retry long limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Power Management:off

So it doesn’t look like it’s up and running. Step 5 of the sticky said to run 'sudo /usr/sbin/iwlist scan. Results:

lo Interface doesn’t support scanning.

eth0 Interface doesn’t support scanning.

wlan0 Interface doesn’t support scanning : Network is down

linux@linux:~>

Any help? The firmware doesn’t seem to be installing successfully, or at least permanently. I am running this from a thumbdrive. I don’t want to partition disk space on my hard drive, because I don’t have parent permission.

Again, sorry for noobishness.

#2

So it looks like there is something working with wlan0. Have you went into YaST / Network Devices / Network Settings / Global Options Tab / Network Setup Method / Set “User Controlled with Network Manager” Bullet. Then select OK on bottom right. Log out or reboot PC to start using Network Manager. In KDE, you need to start the application KWallet which stores your Network pass phrase and you must go into the Network Manager to enter your SSID and Network Pass phrase to start using the wireless connection. Be aware using a blank or hidden SSID does not seem to work with Network Manager.

Thank You,