How to get Broadcom 4313 driver on fresh 11.3?

English Network/Internet
1

From my lspci output I get Broadcom 4313 and 0x14e4:0x4727

It appears that Broadcom supports this card with their Linux STA driver

Broadcom.com - 802.11 Linux STA driver

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

I guess on that page mine is

4313 2.4 Ghz	    0x14e4	0x4727 		Dell 1501

even though my notebook is Toshiba.

Then they say that the driver is included with Fedora and Ubuntu but nothing about OpenSuse. Then they go on about compiling the driver myself.

I’m pretty sure the modules required for compiling drivers are not available on a fresh install and without Internet connection.

Is there an easier way to get the driver?

Could someone knowledgeable make some .rpm that I can download on another machine and put on a USB stick? Or do I have to wait until Suse developers get to it?

Or could someone make wl.ko file they are talking about on Broadcome Readme? It looks fairly easy to install the driver, if I knew exactly what to disable/blacklist and what security module to load.

Another thing I got from dmesg, not sure if it’s of any help, was that for this card pci entry that goes like 07:00.0 there’s “support D1 D2”, then “#PME supported from D0 D3hot D3cold” then the next line “#PME disabled”.

I’ve searched this forum but the only time 4313 was mentioned when someone made a mistake with the model number

11.1 Wireless bcm 4313 issues

2

Forgot to mention the important requirement - I’m using 64 bit OpenSuse 11.3 KDE, so need a 64 bit driver.

3

Bump

Is it really a driver not being written for Suse yet or is it something else?

In case of a missing driver, how long should I wait for the normal development process to solve it? Would it be next release, in about half a year, or would it be in updates as soon as it’s ready?

Without Internet access on the installed 11.3 I won’t even know if it’s there.

Just tried Kubuntu live, the driver is inlcuded on the CD, it only needs manual activation as it’s proprietary.

4

Hooray! Victory!

While clicking around, searching for possible solutions. I came across Packman’s driver I dismissed earlier because it doesn’t support my 4313 card.

This time, however, I noticed that it’s based on the same 802.11 Linux STA driver that I talked about a couple of posts before.

If ubuntu’s version of it works, why not Packman’s?

Downloaded .rpm, installed it, even without net access, and voila - Broadcom 4313 works. Problem solved.

Thanks to OpenSuse for providing this space for my running diary.

Really, if I hadn’t had a place to write my concerns down and reflect on them I would have given up three days ago.

Hope it would help the community in some way in the future.

The install was without any problems, no drivers to blacklist and no modules to add. The only thing to look for is the type of kernel you run on boot - default, desktop or xen and choose the appropriate download. I don’t think there’s any harm but the driver compiles these new kernel versions and creates new entries for bootloader that are not of any use to a generic n00b like me.

Maybe someone should inform Packman developers that 4313 works with their driver, at least in one case.

5

I’m not sure exactly which Broadcom I have (4309) but after a fresh install I type in the terminal

install_bcm43xx_firmware

and it does the download, fwcutter and installs it for me. Don’t even have to add any particular repositories.

I don’t know if this would work for the 4313 though.

Currently the only distro that works with my Broadcom out of the box is Fedora (12+) and that is because it is supported by the OpenFWWF open source wireless firmware which Fedora includes.

6

On 07/21/2010 12:23 PM, Stan Ice wrote:
>
> Bump
>
> Is it really a driver not being written for Suse yet or is it something
> else?

You have a major misconception of the role of a distro such as openSUSE. Drivers
are part of the kernel and that code is managed by Linus Torvalds. A distro may
make modifications to the kernel, but their major function is packaging and
development of their special tools. For openSUSE, these are things like YaST,
zypper, etc.

> In case of a missing driver, how long should I wait for the normal
> development process to solve it? Would it be next release, in about half
> a year, or would it be in updates as soon as it’s ready?

How long indeed? Most of the kernel development work is done by volunteers. For
b43, there are no paid professionals. I won’t go into details, but I have done
as much as I can to add the 802.11n devices to the driver. If the driver were to
magically appear tomorrow, it would be in a kernel 2.6.35 or later. As openSUSE
never changes the base kernel used in a particular release, a driver for your
device will never be in 11.3, and is unlikely to be in 11.4.

> Without Internet access on the installed 11.3 I won’t even know if it’s
> there.
>
> Just tried Kubuntu live, the driver is inlcuded on the CD, it only
> needs manual activation as it’s proprietary.

The license for the wl driver prevents it from being in openSUSE. That is the
meaning of the “open” part. It will not likely be on the Packman repo much
longer as that usage violates the Broadcom license.

>
>

7

I probably still have a lot of misonceptions about Linux and the role of the various distros, ie how exactly people get the drivers for their wireless or graphic cards. Are they part of the kernel, add ons, open sourse, restricted, proprietary etc?

It doesn’t matter much to me, I just want a fairly simple process of making them work. Ubuntu prompted me to install this particular driver with their otherwise useless “Hardware” application and the driver was on their Live CD. It isn’t on Suse’s DVD but if it’s downloadable somewhere like Packman or those Ati pages on Suse website, that’s just as good.

I don’t know if Packman is going to delete it soon. Broadcom doesn’t seem to have a problem with their driver being installed with Ubuntu and Fedora and I don’t know if Packman has made any modifications to it that would break their license. I guess I’m lucky I got it before it’s gone.

As for B43 driver - I have no idea what makes 4313 card so special that it fails to work, Broadcom’s own driver includes it together with a bunch of other 43xxs, Packman didn’t list it but it still worked.

There’s no way of predicting if a new Win7 notebook would have all the drivers available in Linux, too, I just hoped for the best. So far it’s only a minor hiccup.

8

On 07/21/2010 06:36 PM, Stan Ice wrote:
>
> I probably still have a lot of misonceptions about Linux and the role of
> the various distros, ie how exactly people get the drivers for their
> wireless or graphic cards. Are they part of the kernel, add ons, open
> sourse, restricted, proprietary etc?

They come from all of the above. The main advantage of being in the kernel is
that when you get a revised kernel as an update, all the drivers will be
present. Any of the other forms will need to be rebuilt as every driver must be
built with the same compiler version, the same configuration variables, and the
same headers as the rest of the kernel.

> It doesn’t matter much to me, I just want a fairly simple process of
> making them work. Ubuntu prompted me to install this particular driver
> with their otherwise useless “Hardware” application and the driver was
> on their Live CD. It isn’t on Suse’s DVD but if it’s downloadable
> somewhere like Packman or those Ati pages on Suse website, that’s just
> as good.
>
> I don’t know if Packman is going to delete it soon. Broadcom doesn’t
> seem to have a problem with their driver being installed with Ubuntu
> and Fedora and I don’t know if Packman has made any modifications to it
> that would break their license. I guess I’m lucky I got it before it’s
> gone.

Ubuntu and Fedora both distribute software that is not open source. OpenSUSE
does not, which is why the wl driver should not be on that site. If it is
deleted, your wireless will break the next time the kernel is updated.

> As for B43 driver - I have no idea what makes 4313 card so special that
> it fails to work, Broadcom’s own driver includes it together with a
> bunch of other 43xxs, Packman didn’t list it but it still worked.

The real key are the PCI IDs, not the name. Many vendors, including Broadcom,
change the chip without changing the model name. The nature of the hardware
dictates whether b43 supports it or not, but essentially if it is an 802.11n
device, b43 does not support it yet.

> There’s no way of predicting if a new Win7 notebook would have all the
> drivers available in Linux, too, I just hoped for the best. So far it’s
> only a minor hiccup.

The only thing you are guaranteed is that there are Win 7 drivers.

9

Glad you found out how to do it. Here some stripped down instructions I used on my HP Laptop which has a Broadcom 43xx wireless. It took only a couple of minutes once I found the instructions.

add packman to repositories (if not already there.)
goto install software
search ‘broadcom’
install ‘broadcom-wl’ and ‘broadcom-wl-kmp-desktop’

10

Hi,

Don’t really know what to say.

To be polite I should show some genuine interest in wireless driver issues but once MY problem was solved the interest feels fake.

I’m not selfish, I just estimate that the probability of me needing this information in the near future is zero.

Should I store it for the future use? Hmm, here’s an example - with a new notebook blending in the same home network I looked up my old network setup thread, not even a year old, and I can’t make any sense out of it anymore, it’s all gone, even if I thought I really go it that time.

I’d love to discuss the implications of Packman storing a license breaking driver, or naming procedures of Broadcom chips, but I’m afraid my small brain is not going to hold it for much longer.

I look at my first post in this thread and I’m already all confused - is my driver 4313 or 4727? What was it I was looking for?

So, please forgive me for dropping the subject.

On the separate note, I was under the impression that Debian and its derivatives were open source nazis while Suse was a corporate sell out. In fact I switched to Suse after I couldn’t get nVidia and Ati drivers under PClinuxOS and Ubuntu, and on one occasion it was even the wireless that made me convinced that OpenSuse rulez when it comes to driver support. Once I chose it over Fedora because of default driver issues, too.

I don’t know how other people choose their distros, maybe they like the colors, maybe they follow the counter on distrowatch, maybe they have nostalgic attractions, maybe it’s familiarity. I look for driver support first and foremost. Can I get my hardware working? Can I get internet connection? Wireless? Visual effects support? The colors and the rest can be customized.

I admit I’m f*cking impressed with Yast, though, and I assumed zypper was a Linux world wide application. Felt lost without them in Ubuntu.

Anyways, on to tackling sshfs and ssh keys, sound, language and codec issues have been solved already and comics and weather plasmoids working great.

I guess it’s a good bye to the wireless thread, until I update the system and Packman stops compiling off-license drivers.