Can't connect with Dell (broadcom) 1520 wireless adapter

English Network/Internet
1

I recently ordered a new Dell Optiplex 790 which arrived last Friday. I burned an openSUSE 12.1 network installation CD (x64) and went to work. The installer identified the wireless adapter as “broadcom wlan,” but I was unable to use it. I tried every possible combination involving WEP and know that I entered the right password. I then burned a full 12.1 DVD.

I installed LXDE. The DVD also identified my adapter as “broadcom wlan.” It wouldn’t work either, so I did some research. I found this page 16. Wireless Driver Installation - Making Your Broadcom, Ralink etc. Wifi/Wlan Work. I am dual-booting to Windows, so I downloaded the drivers “broadcom-wl” and “broadcom-wl-kmp-desktop” and then booted back into openSUSE. They wouldn’t install without a cabled connection, so I wound up bringing the computer to my office to get one. As instructed, I added the Packman Repository, and Yast installed six or seven files (there were dependencies).

Still no wireless connection though, and the *hwinfo --wlan --short *command produces nothing other than “broadcom wlan.”

This has to be a very common adapter. Does anyone know the driver that I need? I will go through the steps in the top two stickied posts in this thread when I get home from work this evening, but this is maddening because of the time I’ve already spent and the fact that part of the reason I bought a Dell was to get generic hardware.

This is the Dell spec sheet on my adapter. It is labeled as a Dell (DW1520) part but is made by Broadcom. I verified that by looking through the properties of the Windows driver.
Documentation

If nothing else, can someone recommend a USB wireless adapter that is known to work with openSUSE out of the box? I think that I can buy one for about $15, and the amount of time that I have already spent on this is ridiculous.

Thank you in advance!

Will N.
Bryan, TX USA

2

Post the result of

/sbin/lspci -nnk
3

Hang on, is your device USB?

It should work
But these I know do
Tenda Wireless-N150 USB Adapter | Ebuyer.com

4

It is not USB. It’s a half height card. I don’t recognize the connection type, but it’s a little larger than USB.

I will post the results of the above command when I get home from work. It’s not quite 1 PM when I am. :frowning:

Thank you for your help!

5

Here is the result of the command. Except for a little bit at the end, most of this looks to be related to my on-board Ethernet controller. Thanks.

00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation 2nd Generation Core Processor Family DRAM Controller [8086:0100] (rev 09)
    Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:04ad]
    Kernel driver in use: agpgart-intel
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:0102] (rev 09)
    Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:04ad]
    Kernel driver in use: i915
00:16.0 Communication controller [0780]: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family MEI Controller #1 [8086:1c3a] (rev 04)
    Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:04ad]
    Kernel driver in use: mei
00:19.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Intel Corporation 82579LM Gigabit Network Connection [8086:1502] (rev 04)
    Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:047e]
    Kernel driver in use: e1000e
00:1a.0 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #2 [8086:1c2d] (rev 04)
    Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:04ad]
    Kernel driver in use: ehci_hcd
00:1b.0 Audio device [0403]: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family High Definition Audio Controller [8086:1c20] (rev 04)
    Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:04ad]
    Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel
00:1c.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 1 [8086:1c10] (rev b4)
    Kernel driver in use: pcieport
00:1c.2 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 3 [8086:1c14] (rev b4)
    Kernel driver in use: pcieport
00:1d.0 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #1 [8086:1c26] (rev 04)
    Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:04ad]
    Kernel driver in use: ehci_hcd
00:1e.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge [8086:244e] (rev a4)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge [0601]: Intel Corporation Q65 Express Chipset Family LPC Controller [8086:1c4c] (rev 04)
    Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:04ad]
00:1f.2 SATA controller [0106]: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family 6 port SATA AHCI Controller [8086:1c02] (rev 04)
    Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:04ad]
    Kernel driver in use: ahci
00:1f.3 SMBus [0c05]: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family SMBus Controller [8086:1c22] (rev 04)
    Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:04ad]
02:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM43224 802.11a/b/g/n [14e4:4353] (rev 01)
    Subsystem: Dell Wireless 1520 Half-size Mini PCIe Card [1028:000e]
    Kernel driver in use: wl
6

Now that I look more closely, there is obviously a lot more than network devices in this list.
lol!

7

This is your device


02:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM43224 802.11a/b/g/n [14e4:4353] (rev 01)     Subsystem: Dell Wireless 1520 Half-size Mini PCIe Card [1028:000e]     Kernel driver in use: wl

The driver is in place

Please post result of

uname -a

rpm -qa | grep broadcom
8

result from ‘uname -a’

Linux dvr-pc 3.1.10-1.9-desktop #1 SMP PREEMPT Thu Apr 5 18:48:38 UTC 2012 (4a97ec8) x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

results from ‘rpm -qa | grep broadcom’

broadcom-wl-kmp-desktop-5.100.82.112_k3.1.10_1.9-10.1.x86_64
broadcom-wl-5.100.82.112-10.1.x86_64
broadcom-wl-kmp-default-5.100.82.112_k3.1.10_1.9-10.1.x86_64
9 
su -
zypper rm broadcom-wl-kmp-default

then reboot

10

caf4926,

I appreciate all of the help that you have given me with my wireless. My wife and son have both been sick, so I hadn’t had a chance to work on the problem any more until today.

Removing the broadcom “default” kernel didn’t help. I was grasping at straws this afternoon and changed the networking control application from ifup to Network Manager. I got a message having to do with no networking. Maybe ‘no active network’? I didn’t write it down. I rebooted, and when the system came back up, my wireless router was showing up in Network Manager. I entered the password, and everything is now working fine.

My original plan was to convert this machine to Tumbleweed but leave the Packman repository in the list. Do you think that would be a bad idea?

Thanks again!

Will

11

I’m using Tumbleweed. But not the broadcom driver.
My device works with b43

Yours should too.

But with Tumbleweed the broadcom driver isn’t there for the updated kernel, though if b43 works this shouldn’t matter.
To try b43, just remove the ‘wl’ drivers in your current installation

su -
zypper rm broadcom-wl broadcom-wl-kmp-desktop

then reboot.

FYI:
Your initial problem was that you were not using the network manager. You also has the default kernel module installed, just to confuse things.

Now install the firmware, (assumes you have a wired connection)

Open a terminal

sudo /usr/sbin/install_bcm43xx_firmware

After it’s done and in a moment, wireless should work (if not reboot again)

*Tumbleweed is great, but it needs some experience…

12

On 06/15/2012 10:26 PM, caf4926 wrote:
>
> I’m using Tumbleweed. But not the broadcom driver.
> My device works with b43
>
> Yours should too.
>
> But with Tumbleweed the broadcom driver isn’t there for the updated
> kernel, though if b43 works this shouldn’t matter.
> To try b43, just remove the ‘wl’ drivers in your current installation
>
>
> Code:
> --------------------
> su -
> zypper rm broadcom-wl broadcom-wl-kmp-desktop
> --------------------
>
> then reboot.
>
> FYI:
> Your initial problem was that you were not using the network manager.
> You also has the default kernel module installed, just to confuse
> things.
>
> Now install the firmware, (assumes you have a wired connection)
>
> Open a terminal
>
> Code:
> --------------------
> sudo /usr/sbin/install_bcm43xx_firmware
> --------------------
>
>
> After it’s done and in a moment, wireless should work (if not reboot
> again)
>
> *Tumbleweed is great, but it needs some experience…

That last comment makes it sound as though missing b43 firmware is a Tumbleweed
problem. On the contrary, the problem is Broadcom’s as they refuse to allow
anyone to redistribute their firmware.