Last Resort

English Network/Internet
1

Hey everyone,

I am a Linux newb but I LOVE OpenSUSE and am determined to learn it. Biggest problem is that I haven’t been able to get wireless to work on my OpenSUSE 11.0 (haven’t tried earlier versions). I have tried many, many different fixits via research: installing Intel pro/100 VE’s Linux driver, installing its Vista driver, installing Ndiswrapper, installing progs that come with OpenSUSE, etc. I may install a fresh copy of OpenSUSE 11.0 after I figure out how to do internet, as my OpenSUSE has redundancies now.

Anyway, I have done research and couldn’t find a solution. For anyone who would be kind enough to help me, I have followed the sticky requirements for what I need to post.

  1. Entered “/sbin/lspci” in terminal.
    Response: (ignoring non-network responses)

00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 02)

00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 02)

00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev e2)

03:00.0 Network Controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM 94311BCG wlan mini-PCI (rev 01)

04:08.0 Ethernet Controller: Intel Corporation PRO/100 VE Network Connection (rev 02)

2)Entered “/sbin/lspci -n”
Responses: (matching above)

00:1c.0 0604: 8086:27d0 (rev 02)
00:1c.1 0604: 8086:27d2 (rev 02)
00:1e.0 0604: 8086:2448 (rev e2)
03:00.0 0280: 14e4:4311 (rev 01)
04:08.0 0200: 8086:1092 (rev 02)

3)Entered “dmesg | less”
Response: (related to network)

b43-phy0: Broadcom 4311 wlan found
(haven’t found any lines indicating that I am missing firmware)

4)Entered “/usr/sbin/iwconfig”
Response:

wlan0 -
IEEE 802.11g ESSID= " "
mode: managed channel:0
Access point: Not-Associated
Tx-Power - 0 dBm
Retry min limit: 7
RTS thr: off
Fragment thr: 2352 B
link quality: 0
signal level: 0
noise level: 0
RX invalid nwid: 0
Rx invalid crypt: 0
Rx infalid frag: 0
TX recessive retries: 0
Invalid misc: 0
Missed beacon: 0

5)Entered “sudo /usr/sbin/iwlist scan”
Response:

e100: Intel(R) PRO/100 Network drivers 3.5.23-k4-NAPI
e100: Copyright (c) 1999-2006 Intel Corp
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:04:08.0 [A] -> GSI 20 (level, low) -> IRQ 20
PCI: setting latency timer of device 0000:04:08.0 to 64
rtc_cmos 00:06: rtc core:registered rtc_cmos as rtc0
e100: eth0: e100_probe:addr 0x8004000, irq 20, MAC addr 00:e0:b8:bf:82:c2

I also got a response that says “wlan0: Interface doesn’t support scanning: Network is down.” (don’t remember the command I typed in to get that…)

I am running with KDE 4.0 and am not sure what I’m doing wrong. Please let me know if I need to provide more information. I’m not even sure if it’s Intel or Broadcom that I need to focus on. I would be SO happy if anyone could help me get my wireless working with OpenSUSE 11.0.

THANK YOU!!
-Eve

2

Your wired interface is the Intel one - the wireless is a Broadcom BCM4311,
which works well - I’m using one now.

First, what does the output of ‘dmesg | grep b43’ show? If it shows missing
firmware, go to the stickies and see how to install the firmware.

If the firmware has been loaded, then post the output of ‘sudo /usr/sbin/iwlist
wlan0 scan’.

Larry

3

Hey Larry,

Thank you for your help. I typed in the first command and DID get a response that my Broadcom 4311 firmware was “not found or lead failed.” I was given a web address for the firmware fix (but wasn’t sure which one to download). The address was b43 - Linux Wireless.

I wanted to follow your instructions on the broadcom fix first so I followed your direction in the sticky, but the very first command’s response was “git: command not found.” I am sure that I didn’t mistype, as I copied and pasted.

What do you think I should do next?

Larry, I really appreciate your help.
-Eve

4

damnpixie wrote:
> Hey Larry,
>
> Thank you for your help. I typed in the first command and DID get a
> response that my Broadcom 4311 firmware was “not found or lead failed.”
> I was given a web address for the firmware fix (but wasn’t sure which
> one to download). The address was ‘b43 - Linux Wireless’
> (http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/b43#devicefirmware).
>
> I wanted to follow your instructions on the broadcom fix first so I
> followed your direction in the sticky, but the very first command’s
> response was “git: command not found.” I am sure that I didn’t mistype,
> as I copied and pasted.

That means you don’t have the git package installed, but you shouldn’t need it.

> What do you think I should do next?

Do you have Internet access in Linux? If so, then enter the command

sudo /usr/sbin/install_bcm43xx_firmware

If you don’t have Internet access in Linux, then one of the stickies has the
instructions on downloading the firmware files in some other OS, sneaker netting
them to Linux, and then extracting the firmware. This process does not require
compiling any programs.

Larry

That will

5

sounds like you need to install git:

“git
Git is a fast, scalable, distributed revision control system with an unusually rich command set that provides both high-level operations and full access to internals.
This package itself only provides the README of git but with the packages it requires, it brings you a complete Git environment including GTK and email interfaces and tools for importing source code repositories from other revision control systems such as subversion, CVS, and GNU arch.”

It would seem to be in the main update repository: do you know how to download such things?

on my system; if I open a terminal, and type in man git I get a version of the above: what I has pasted above comes from opening YaST; and in the “available” window, typing git

6

Hey there,

Thanks so much for helping me. I took Larry’s advice and found the part of the sticky that has instructions for installing the firmware through another method. I typed in:

"
1.tar xjf broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5.tar.bz2
2.sudo mkdir -p /lib/firmware
3.sudo b43-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware \ broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5/driver/wl_apsta_mimo.o"

And the response was “Cannot open input file broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5/driver/wl_apsta_mimo.o”

So I followed pdc_2’s advice and installed git in order to follow the first set of instructions. Everything was going well until I typed in “./ssb-sprom -i sprom.old -P.” The results were “bash: ./ssb-sprom: no such file or directory.” So I was unable to get the results I needed.

Am I doing something wrong?

THANKS!!
-Eve

7

damnpixie wrote:
> Hey there,
>
> Thanks so much for helping me. I took Larry’s advice and found the part
> of the sticky that has instructions for installing the firmware through
> another method. I typed in:
>
> "
> 1.tar xjf broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5.tar.bz2
> 2.sudo mkdir -p /lib/firmware
> 3.sudo b43-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware
> broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5/driver/wl_apsta_mimo.o"
>
> And the response was “Cannot open input file
> broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5/driver/wl_apsta_mimo.o”

Your command looks correct except for the final " in the file name. You need to
get rid of that and rerun that single command.

Larry

8

Hey Larry,

I didn’t put the " (quotation mark) in the command line when I input the commands; I just put it in the post because I have some kind of anal retentive punctuation thing going on. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

-Eve

9

damnpixie wrote:
> Hey Larry,
>
> I didn’t put the " (quotation mark) in the command line when I input
> the commands; I just put it in the post because I have some kind of anal
> retentive punctuation thing going on. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

Find the file that the command calls for. In addition, check its permissions
(use ‘ls -l’). Report back what you find.

Larry

10

Hey Larry,

I typed in ls -l and recieved this: (only posting what is relevant to network)

drwxr-xr-x 5 1102 1102 4096 2008-1-6 12:57 broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5

-rw-r–r-- 1 evetracy root 3888794 2008-12-03 16:44 broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5.tar.tar

-rw-r–r-- 1 root root 258 2008-12-03 17:13 sprom.old

-rw-r–r-- 1 evetracy root 652766 2008-11-29 19:57 wl_apsta-3.130.20.0

Did I do this right? FYI, I think I did try an earlier Broadcom fix before coming to the forums. Thank you for your help.

-Eve

11

damnpixie wrote:
> Hey Larry,
>
> I typed in ls -l and recieved this: (only posting what is relevant to
> network)
>
> drwxr-xr-x 5 1102 1102 4096 2008-1-6 12:57 broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5

What do you get with

ls -lR broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5

Larry

12

Hey Larry,

I get a very long response when I type in that command. Since I’m having trouble sending info between my Windows and OpenSUSE, I wasn’t able to copy everything (but can keep trying). Do you need to see everything, or is there a certain part I can write?

I hope this isn’t contradictory to fixing this problem, but OpenSUSE with KDE 4 had programs that just kept crashing, so I re-installed it with KDE 3.5 (and then tried all the instructions all over again).

13

damnpixie wrote:
> Hey Larry,
>
> I get a very long response when I type in that command. Since I’m
> having trouble sending info between my Windows and OpenSUSE, I wasn’t
> able to copy everything (but can keep trying). Do you need to see
> everything, or is there a certain part I can write?

Try typing just

ls -l ~/broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5/driver/wl_apsta_mimo.o

> I hope this isn’t contradictory to fixing this problem, but OpenSUSE
> with KDE 4 had programs that just kept crashing, so I re-installed it
> with KDE 3.5 (and then tried all the instructions all over again).

No, the desktop won’t alter the driver result. BTW, you made a good move by
switching. KDE4 in 11.1 seems to be OK, but it certainly wasn’t in 11.0.

Larry

14

The reply to that command was:

-rw-r–r-- 1 1102 1102 1194265 2008-01-06 12:57 /home/evetracy/broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5/driver/wl_apsta_mimo.o

-Eve

15

damnpixie wrote:
> The reply to that command was:
>
> -rw-r–r-- 1 1102 1102 1194265 2008-01-06 12:57/home/evetracy/broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5/driver/wl_apsta_mimo.o

You should be able to use the command

sudo b43-fwcutter /home/evetracy/broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5/driver/wl_apsta_mimo.o

Larry

16

Hey Larry,

That worked! The driver was unpacked. How do I know if wireless is working, now? I have restarted it and entered a new wlan ssid connection, but did not see any indication that it was working.

Thank you for your help.

-Eve

17

damnpixie wrote:
> Hey Larry,
>
> That worked! The driver was unpacked. How do I know if wireless is
> working, now? I have restarted it and entered a new wlan ssid
> connection, but did not see any indication that it was working.

Are you configuring from KNetworkManager (the applet in the corner)? If so,
clicking on the icon will show what connection you are using. If you have a wire
plugged in, it will take precedence.

First of all, look at ‘dmesg | grep b43’. See if that indicates any errors.

The next step is to look at the output from ‘sudo /usr/sbin/iwlist scan’.

We should also see the output of ‘/sbin/iwconfig’.

Larry

18

dmesg | grep b43

b43-phy0: Broadcom 4311 WLAN found
input: b43-phy0 as /devices/virtual/input/input9
b43-phy0 ERROR: Firmware file “b43/ucode5.fw” not found or load failed
b43-phy0 ERROR: You must go to b43 - Linux Wireless and download the latest firmware (version 4).

sudo /usr/sbin/iwlist scan

l0 Interface doesn’t support scanning
eth0 Interface doesn’t support scanning
wmaster0 Interface doesn’t support scanning
wlan0 Interface doesn’t support scanning: Network is down

/sbin/iwconfig

bash: /sbin/iwconfig: No such file or directory.

19

damnpixie wrote:
> -dmesg | grep b43-
>
> b43-phy0: Broadcom 4311 WLAN found
> input: b43-phy0 as /devices/virtual/input/input9
> b43-phy0 ERROR: Firmware file “b43/ucode5.fw” not found or load failed
> b43-phy0 ERROR: You must go to ‘b43 - Linux Wireless’
> (http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/b43#devicefirmware) and
> download the latest firmware (version 4).

Obviously unpacking the firmware did not work. It still is not available.

20

So this means that I won’t be able to get wireless, correct?