I’m about to install openSUSE 13.1 on my rig. But due to past experiences I feel a bit uneasy about possible issues.
For example, for the wireless card I have (bcm4311) I have to use the fwcutter script (/usr/sbin/install_bcm43xx_firmware), but since 12.1 or 12.1 (don’t remember very well) this hasn’t worked. When trying to download the firmware it always crashed the OS, prompting to a black screen with text, probably error messages. I was told this was probably due to an incompatibility of the script with the new kernel, so I always had to remove the wireless card prior OS installation, install fwcutter, run the script, shutdown and put back the card.
Then with the past 12.3 release my user no longer was automatically added to the “video” group when installing Nvidia drivers, resulting in black or white screen after rebooting.
Are this issues still existent on 13.1?
P.S: This must be rumor, I know, but sounds nasty… I heard once that Nvidia probably made a contract or kind of alliance with Microsoft to overcome GNU software or just in favor of proprietary software, and due to that Nvidia is sharing less and less information each time with Linux, so recent/upcoming drivers will come trickier and trickier.
>
> I’m about to install openSUSE 13.1 on my rig. But due to past
> experiences I feel a bit uneasy about possible issues.
>
> For example, for the wireless card I have (bcm4311) I have to use the
> fwcutter script (/usr/sbin/install_bcm43xx_firmware), but since 12.1 or
> 12.1 (don’t remember very well) this hasn’t worked. When trying to
> download the firmware it always crashed the OS, prompting to a black
> screen with text, probably error messages. I was told this was probably
> due to an incompatibility of the script with the new kernel, so I always
> had to remove the wireless card prior OS installation, install
> fwcutter, run the script, shutdown and put back the card.
>
> Then with the past 12.3 release my user no longer was automatically
> added to the “video” group when installing Nvidia drivers, resulting in
> black or white screen after rebooting.
>
> Are this issues still existent on 13.1?
>
> P.S: This must be rumor, I know, but sounds nasty… I heard once that
> Nvidia probably made a contract or kind of alliance with Microsoft to
> overcome GNU software or just in favor of proprietary software, and due
> to that Nvidia is sharing less and less information each time with
> Linux, so recent/upcoming drivers will come trickier and trickier.
>
There are some new drivers built in kernel - you might luck out. They
finally got the alx ethernet driver built in. The nouveau open source
driver is working pretty well with my GT630 video but if you have any of the
older cards it might be a challenge. I have some 6100 and 6150se chips that
have real heartburn until you run the first update after installation.
A clean install seems to work just fine but a couple of hiccups with the
12.3 -> 13.1 update may grab you, especially if you have a UEFI secure boot
setup. First, one of the new features is the ability to keep your old repos
during install - just edit the repository entries you want to keep when you
are offered the choice during the installation. That did not work out well
for me. When I tried it, the updated grub2 and efi files were not written.
I had a heads up on this so I kept a couple of spare partitions where I
installed a bare bones 13.1 clean system. When the boot setup failed in any
of my test installations, I just did an update of the clean installation and
that would bet the boot back. Some update installs also don’t pick up the
right version numbers but that’s cosmetic.
The only thing that is actually failing on me is kmail - the indexing of old
messages is all fouled up and pretty well locks the system when I try to
view a pre-existing message. That’s really the only show stopper for me -
the rest looks pretty solid
And there’s the proprietary broadcom driver, that may work better for you: PackMan :: Informationen zum Paket broadcom-wl
Note, that you need the broadcom-wl package and one of the kernel modules depending which kernel you are using. (broadcom-wl-kmp-desktop, or broadcom-wl-kmp-default, or …)
Then with the past 12.3 release my user no longer was automatically added to the “video” group when installing Nvidia drivers, resulting in black or white screen after rebooting.
That’s by design, and isn’t necessary anymore.
Although 12.3 had a bug/oversight at release that the user didn’t get enough permissions for the video card when using the nvidia driver, causing the black or white screen (only in GNOME AFAIK) you mention.
But this has long been fixed.
An online update for 12.3’s systemd fixing this was released in April.
P.S: This must be rumor, I know, but sounds nasty… I heard once that Nvidia probably made a contract or kind of alliance with Microsoft to overcome GNU software or just in favor of proprietary software, and due to that Nvidia is sharing less and less information each time with Linux, so recent/upcoming drivers will come trickier and trickier.
Nonsense, I would say.
Actually Nvidia recently announced, they would finally support the development of the open source nouveau driver.
@Wolfi323:
Browsing packages in Software Manager I find in total only 3 b43 related packages: the openSUSE repo b43 fwcutter which is obviously already installed, and b43-firmware and b43legacy-firmware, both from Packman. My wireless card is bcm4311, [14e4:4311] (rev 01) according to “lspci -vnn -d 14e4:”. How can I know what firmware my card requires, or if it supports both?
And what would be the difference with the package the fwcutter script installs?
I’d not go for the wl driver since it’s a bit more limited than the b43 driver, such as AP and monitor modes.
@Caf4926:
The Nvidia bug on 12.3 mr Wolfi just mentioned, that’s what I talked about. Mine is GeForce 8600m GT. Probably with your card didn’t happen… ??
fwcutter is just a tool to extract the firmware from the Windows drivers.
Not sure if this is true, but I think b43legacy-firmware is used by the “b43legacy” driver, whereas b43-firmware is used by the “b43” driver.
The bcm4311 is supported by the “b43” driver, so you would need b43-firmware.
And what would be the difference with the package the fwcutter script installs?
AFAIK they both install the same firmware. I think the difference is that the script downloads it from the internet, whereas the b43-firmware RPM has it ready-packaged.
I’d not go for the wl driver since it’s a bit more limited than the b43 driver, such as AP and monitor modes.
@Wolfi323: b43 - Linux Wireless
Also, I always thought fwcutter script downloaded legacy driver and firmware, and I somewhere read bcm4311 used precisely legacy. But if you say 4311 is also supported by b43…
Also, I always thought fwcutter script downloaded legacy driver and firmware, and I somewhere read bcm4311 used precisely legacy. But if you say 4311 is also supported by b43…
b43-fwcutter still is a tool to extract the firmware from a proprietary binary driver. The script included in the package downloads the driver and extracts the firmware from there (to be used with the kernel’s open source b43 and b43legacy drivers).
> P.S: This must be rumor, I know, but sounds nasty… I heard once that
> Nvidia probably made a contract or kind of alliance with Microsoft to
> overcome GNU software or just in favor of proprietary software, and due
> to that Nvidia is sharing less and less information each time with
> Linux, so recent/upcoming drivers will come trickier and trickier.
No idea of that.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 12.3 x86_64 “Dartmouth” at Telcontar)
b43legacy should be used on all BCM4301 cards and BCM4306 cards with a 80211 core revision of 4 or less. b43 should be used on all other cards. You can safely have both versions built on the same system. Info about cores is printed by ssb when the driver finds a board; type “dmesg” to see it. If you are unsure or don’t know what we are talking about here, get both of the firmwares and both b43 and b43legacy and the kernel autoloader will automatically load the correct driver for your device.
