I found an old 32bit laptop and decided to install opensuse 13.1 on it. Unfortunately, I’m having problems connecting to the internet because it has an old broadcom wireless card. I only have wireless access through my university housing, so I can’t connect to a wired network to install the needed drivers. I tried downloading the drivers from my main laptop from here:
but unfortunately the only packages that I found seem to require the linux kernel version 3.12.53-40, but in the base install the version 3.11.6-4 is installed instead. I tried to look for an rpm package of the 3.12.53-40 version but haven’t been able to find it online. Is there anything I can do to install the appropriate packages in my laptop so that I can connect to the internet?
su -
zypper in make patch gcc rpm-build {or maybe rpmbuild} kernel-source linux-kernel-headers kernel-syms
exit
Only build stuff as your user and install as root… so now in the terminal as your user cd to the src rpm directory;
rpmbuild --rebuild broadcom-wl-6.30.223.248-8.3.src.rpm
...building stuff...
su -
cd /path/to/built/rpm/from/above/output
zypper in broadcom-wl... broadcom-wl-kmp...
the … mean use the full filename including the .rpm.
Although the procedure mentioned by malcolmlewis probably might work, I would suggest something else for good reasons:
Before installing anything, it would be a much better idea to start by specifying which card we are talking about.
/sbin/lspci -nnk | grep -A3 -i net
Even if posting this information looks hard at first glance (it isn´t if copying the output to external medium), in most cases the only thing really needed is the 8-digit PCI-ID.
For example (my machine, bold red):
lspci -nnk | grep -A3 -i net
01:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller [10ec:8136] (rev 05) # Ethernet card, not interesting here
Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems Device [1179:fdc0]
Kernel driver in use: r8101
02:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Qualcomm Atheros AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) **168c:002b**] (rev 01)
Subsystem: Askey Computer Corp. Device [144f:7173]
Kernel driver in use: ath9k
The other information would be helpful also, but the PCI-ID is the most important part.
For “an old 32 bit Laptop” it is very unlikely the card is only supported by the proprietary broadcom-wl (and not by in-kernel drivers b43/b43legacy or br* drivers), and the problem might boil down to “missing firmware”.
Even if broadcom-wl would be needed (I doubt it, see above, but maybe it is), then why
donloading a src.rpm from another machine
installing all development packages for 3.11.X from DVD (if available)
rebuilding the src.rpm
then maybe one wants to update the system (+kernel) some time later via wifi connection (if working)
having to do the rebuild again or now downloading the broadcom-wl package from packman
and why not just
download recent 3.12.X for 13.1 and matching package for broadcom-wl from packman
install both and get at least an updated kernel “for free”?
But as said above, I estimate the chances that broadcom-wl won´t be needed pretty high.
Thank you very much for your answers. At the end I managed to get a wired connection and I downloaded both, the broadcom-wl and the legacy drivers, but even though they are both now installed, I still can activate the wireless card. I typed the following commands in the my konsole and this is what I got:
/sbin/lspci -nnk | grep -A3 -i net
02:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN [14e4:4311] (rev 01)
Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company BCM4311 802.11b/g Wireless LAN Controller [103c:1363]
Kernel modules: ssb, wl
05:08.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Intel Corporation PRO/100 VE Network Connection [8086:1092] (rev 02)
Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Device [103c:30a0]
Kernel driver in use: e100
Kernel modules: e100