Network Connection Problem

English Network/Internet
1

I just bought the new Alienware 14 with Windows 7 on it. Today I decided to dual boot the computer with OpenSUSE 12.3 (64 bit) with Gnome desktop.
I can’t get any Internet connection via ethernet or wifi. I tried to follow the instructions from this site, 16. Wireless Driver Installation - Making Your Broadcom, Ralink etc. Wifi/Wlan Work. It told me to type in

hwinfo --wlan --short

, but I was told hwinfo was not a recognizable command. I would greatly appreciate all the help I can get.

2

Try using:

/usr/sbin/hwinfo --wlan --short

or this if the first command gives no output:

/usr/sbin/hwinfo

Thank You,

3

It looks to me that you have a problem using your wireless. When that is true, why didn’t you start this thread in the Wireless sub-forum? In that Wirelss sub-forum, there are also a few “sticky” threads at the top where you can find information about getting wirless devices running and also information you are asked to post with your problem. This will help those who might try to help you enormously.

When you want this moved to the Wireless sub-forum, please ask so here. Do NOT start e new thread, because we hate double posting (that will create two seperate discussions about the same thing, people doing double work).

4

Thanks for your help. The last suggestion gave me some information, but it was a lot of information. Do you want all of it, or do you just want me to post what seems to be related to the network card?

5

I’m sorry if I posted this is in the wrong forum and neither was it my intention of double posting or give you more more work. Since I can’t get a connection either wired or wireless, I thought it was a problem with the driver, but if you still think I’m wrong, please move it to the right forum.

6

I think it would be better in the wireless forum (more wireless gurus there, at least intheory;) ).

I will move this. But do not forget to read the stickies there.

This is CLOSED and will be moved to Wireless.

7

Moved from Laptop and open again.

8

I tried to follow the sticky threads. From what I found out This is the information I come up with:
Broadcome Corporation Device 43b1 (rev 03)
14e4:43b1 (rev 03)

I tried to search for the word firmware (from the terminal) using the code

[LEFT]dmesg | grep firmware[/LEFT]

and nothing come up. I also tried to search the Internet for firmware and from what I can find out, there is yet no firmware available for that card. Is that something you can confirm? If that is the case, does it mean I have to wait for the driver to come up.

Again, thanks for all your help.

9

On 08/03/2013 02:56 PM, LinuxUO wrote:
>
> I tried to follow the sticky threads. From what I found out This is the
> information I come up with:
> Broadcome Corporation Device 43b1 (rev 03)
> 14e4:43b1 (rev 03)
>
> I tried to search for the word firmware (from the terminal) using the
> code
> Code:
> --------------------
>
> dmesg | grep firmware
>
> --------------------
> and nothing come up. I also tried to search the Internet for firmware
> and from what I can find out, there is yet no firmware available for
> that card. Is that something you can confirm? If that is the case, does
> it mean I have to wait for the driver to come up.
>
> Again, thanks for all your help.

According to http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/b43#Supported_device,
there is no Linux driver for a 14e4:43b1 device. Not even Broadcom wl handles
that device. The availability of firmware is irrelevant. Note: Firmware runs in
the embedded CPU on the device - a driver run in the host CPU.

Your only hope would be to find a Windows driver and try it with ndiswrapper,
but that usually fails!

If you really need wireless, I suggest buying an inexpensive USB device. If you
want to go that route, There is a partial list of compatible devices at
http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Devices/USB.

10

Thanks for your help and the other people helping me. I will just wait to the driver is available for it and download it then.
I did read about some guy on the Internet who tried to use ndiswrapper without success, so no point for me to try that.

11

Pardon me if I missed this, but some Linux drivers may never come. If a desktop, I would just search for and buy a compatible Linux wireless hardware. If laptop, I would try the same for a USB version. Some can be real cheep in cost. Give it a thought, you can search for such at google with “Linux compatible Wireless Network Interface” Here is one such search link:

https://www.google.com/search?q=Linux+compatible+Wireless+Network+Interface&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a#q=Linux+compatible+Wireless+Network+Interface&client=firefox-a&hs=bwK&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&source=univ&tbm=shop&tbo=u&sa=X&ei=Il3-Uf3wGILs8wS-wYFg&ved=0CKEBELMY&bav=on.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.50165853%2Cd.eWU%2Cpv.xjs.s.en_US.seW1cfrvSKg.O&fp=565de99c7aa25680&biw=1920&bih=991

Thank You,

12

On 08/04/2013 09:06 AM, jdmcdaniel3 wrote:
>
> LinuxUO;2576741 Wrote:
>> Thanks for your help and the other people helping me. I will just wait
>> to the driver is available for it and download it then.
>> I did read about some guy on the Internet who tried to use ndiswrapper
>> without success, so no point for me to try that.
>
> Pardon me if I missed this, but some Linux drivers may never come. If
> a desktop, I would just search for and buy a compatible Linux wireless
> hardware. If laptop, I would try the same for a USB version. Some can
> be real cheep in cost. Give it a thought, you can search for such at
> google with “Linux compatible Wireless Network Interface” Here is one
> such search link:
>
> http://tinyurl.com/pfagy5x
>
> Thank You,

I guess I was not emphatic enough. You should never expect that a Broadcom
driver for Linux will ever appear. Some devices, they write Windows and OS X
drivers and quit. At the moment, their developers are probably busy with
802.11ac drivers, and I do not expect much effort put into 802.11n adapters.

13

Thanks for your reply. I have other computers I can use, so I just use one of those instead.

14

Thanks. I understand that a driver for Linux may never appear. Also my network car is a 802.11ac card.

15

On 08/05/2013 12:26 PM, LinuxUO wrote:
>
> Thanks. I understand that a driver for Linux may never appear. Also my
> network car is a 802.11ac card.

In that case, Broadcom may be producing a Linux driver for that card eventually.
I am not aware of any 802.11ac drivers for Linux. I’m not even sure that
mac80211 can handle it.

16

Thanks for information.

17

I have now installed OpenSUSE 12.3 Gnome on a different laptop that I know the wifi card is supported by Linux, but the wifi doesn’t work.
Broadcom BCM4311 802.11 a/b/g (rev 01)
1404:4312 (rev 01)

When typing in the terminal code:

dmesg | grep firmware

I get this message, 12.917604] b43-phy0 ERROR: Please open a terminal and enter the command:

sudo /usr/sbin/install_bcm43xx_firmware

to download the correct firmware.

I type in the told command and the file is downloaded. The problem is when the file is being extracted/installed I get a kernel panic. Message that comes up is a black screen with tons of text. Bottom text is saying,
Kernek panic - not syncing: Watching detected hard LOCKUP on cpu 0
Shutting down cpus with MMI (think MMI was the correct word)
panic occured, switching back to text consol.

Computer seems frozen after this happen.

Anyone knows what to do from here?

18

On 08/19/2013 04:46 PM, LinuxUO wrote:
>
> I have now installed OpenSUSE 12.3 Gnome on a different laptop that I
> know the wifi card is supported by Linux, but the wifi doesn’t work.
> Broadcom BCM4311 802.11 a/b/g (rev 01)
> 1404:4312 (rev 01)
>
> When typing in the terminal code:
> Code:
> --------------------
> dmesg | grep firmware
> --------------------
> I get this message, 12.917604] b43-phy0 ERROR: Please open a
> terminal and enter the command:
> Code:
> --------------------
> sudo /usr/sbin/install_bcm43xx_firmware
> --------------------
> to download the correct firmware.
>
> I type in the told command and the file is downloaded. The problem is
> when the file is being extracted/installed I get a kernel panic. Message
> that comes up is a black screen with tons of text. Bottom text is
> saying,
> Kernek panic - not syncing: Watching detected hard LOCKUP on cpu 0
> Shutting down cpus with MMI (think MMI was the correct word)
> panic occured, switching back to text consol.
>
> Computer seems frozen after this happen.
>
> Anyone knows what to do from here?

It is a bug in the driver that will be fixed soon as I have discovered the
cause, but that will take a while.

Run the command


su -c "echo blacklist b43 > /etc/modprobe.d/50-b43.conf"

This will keep driver from b43 from loading when the system is restarted. Then
reboot and run the install_bcm43xx_firmware script. At this point, the wifi
should work. Before you reboot again, run ‘sudo rm /etc/modprobe.d/50-b43.conf’
to get rid of the blacklist.

19

Thanks. The wifi is now working. :slight_smile:

20

Just a quick comment on this thread re the OP NIC (43b1) and not the card described in the two posts immediately preceding this.

I just moved my drives from my failed laptop hardware to this HP ENVY 17, and based on what I’ve seen this Wireless chipset is likely going to be mainstream, it would be a crying shame if kernel mode drivers aren’t written for Linux since it looks like a common design architecture exists pairing current Intel Haskwell architecture with this wireless chip.

In the meantime, aside from considering USB Wireless NICs, in the comment section someone reports successfully building an NDIS wrapper driver
networking - Is there a way to get Broadcom 802.11ac WiFi (43b1) working on Ubuntu 12.10? - Ask Ubuntu

I don’t know if the performance is severely degraded, missing features, or even if the author of that comment really did what he claims.

TSU