got it working with ndiswrapper once I had learnt to use suse, it was quite straightforward using the driver from the HP website.
It worked with 10.3 right out of the box, no source.
Thanks for our help, really appreciate it.
Hi,
I have what seems to be the same problem with a Broadcom Wireless connection not working. It is on a new HP2133 running Novell Linux Enterprise 10 version of Suse.
I have read Larry’s excellent Sticky on the Networks forum and followed the steps there as far as they will take me.
The Network Controller is:
02:00.0 Broadcom Corp BCM4310 USB controller (rev 01)
02:00.0 Class 0280:14e4:4315 (rev 01)
Kernal is:
Linux Version 2.6.16.54-0.2.5
Running dmesg I found 6 lines relating to USB 2-1
The first said:
device not accepting address 2, error -71
but then a little further on I get 5 lines (also relating to USB 2-1) which say:
new full speed USB device using uhci-hcd
Product: HP Integrated Module
Manufacturer: Broadcom Corporation
followed by the vendor and product id references.
I cannot see any reference to firmware at all, either accepted or rejected.
So what does this mean? Do I need to install firmware and if so how do I proceed? (baby steps please!)
Guy
Running /usr/sbin/iwconfig gives only the following returns:
lo - no wireless extensions
etho - no wireless extensions (both as expected)
It gives no return for the Broadcom card.
Clearly Step 5 also gives no wireless info.
ddclutch wrote:
> Hi,
> I have what seems to be the same problem with a Broadcom Wireless
> connection not working. It is on a new HP2133 running Novell Linux
> Enterprise 10 version of Suse.
>
> I have read Larry’s excellent Sticky on the Networks forum and followed
> the steps there as far as they will take me.
>
> The Network Controller is:
> 02:00.0 Broadcom Corp BCM4310 USB controller (rev 01)
> 02:00.0 Class 0280:14e4:4315 (rev 01)
This device is not supported by the open-source driver. Your only options are
using ndiswrapper with the Windows XP (Not Vista) driver, or the Broadcom wl
driver. With option 1, you will not need to compile anything. Search the
wireless forum for ndiswrapper articles and you will find a description of how
to install it.
Larry
What puzzles me is that:
a) this is a new HP2133 and yet it is running what now seems to be quite an old kernal at 2.6.16
b) I have, just occasionally managed to get onto the internet via my wireless network, although the DNS wasn’t working and it would only find URLs by manually entering IP addresses. But that was only briefly and now it won’t even find my router any more.
The ndiswrapper site (SourceForge.net) seems to be pretty well abandoned with no “How To” advice and the list of supported devices is no longer being maintained.
Since mine did briefly get internet connection, and yet there is apparently no Linux driver for my Broadcom card does this suggest that ndiswrapper is already installed. How would I find out?
Grrr! I am getting SO frustrated with this process!
I have downloaded what I think is the relevant ndiswrapper.tar file and transferred it to a folder on my Linux desk top. When opened it has around 50 files and I don’t know which are needed or what to do with them!
I have found an XP driver for the HP2133 Netbook, but although their reference number matches the sticker on the bottom (BCM94312) this is not the same version number as came up when I used lspci and got BCM4310 (rev 01) I guess I will just have to hope for the best with this! Its an .exe file so I don’t know what Linux will make of that!
I found a “Software Management” tool in Yast. But entering ndiswrapper in the search window doesn’t find my file on the desktop and doesn’t seem to allow me to browse for it. It appears to be set up to install files from a vendor CD (which I don’t have) or from a Repository site (which I cannot access without a working internet connection which is what I am trying to set up in the first place!)
I have been playing with this thing since I bought it over 4 weeks ago and am making nil progress! I am sorely tempted just to stick it on Flea-bay and cut my losses with it and with Linux!
Guy
Have a look at these two how-to’s for ndiswrapper A Frustrated User’s Guide to Linux & Howto’s this one you need to scroll down to the relevant section
Andy
Thanks Deltaflyer,
Although my last post sounded a bit grumpy, it is only frustration! I DO appreciate the help I am getting here!!
Part of the problem is that there is so much out there on wireless and Linux problems it is working out what is relevant. And for me it is from a pretty low base. e.g. will a solution or a file described for Fedora work in a Suse application?
The first of your 2 links looks understandable and I will give that a go. The second is probably just as simple but even that assumes knowledge I don’t yet have. e.g the first line of the Procedure is probably extremely obvious:
“1) ensure ndiswrapper is installed, start up a console, su to root and type ndiswrapper”
Probably all very simple, but to me I need to google and read up on almost every part.
How do I ensure ndiswrapper is installed - where would I look to find out? what is a console - is that the same as a terminal? what does “su to root” mean?. OK, I can type ndiswrapper, but where? (don’t bother to answer that lot!)
I am not averse to reading and researching stuff but it does take a long time and I am never quite sure if what I am reading is actually relevant to my particular distro (see, I have learnt a Linux word!!)
Anyway, …onwards!
following the “Frustrated User Guide” I get as far as line 12 of installing individual rpms:
typing rpm-Uvh ndis*.rpm just gets a response of “bash rpm-Uvh: command not found”
I am guessing that “bash” means “warning” or something of the sort
ddclutch wrote:
> following the “Frustrated User Guide” I get as far as line 12 of
> installing individual rpms:
>
> typing rpm-Uvh ndis*.rpm just gets a response of “bash rpm-Uvh: command
> not found”
> I am guessing that “bash” means “warning” or something of the sort
Bash is the shell - the program that executes the commands, just like CMD.EXE on
Windows, or COMMAND.COM on DOS (if you are old enough to remember). Your problem
is that you need a space between the “rpm” and the “-Uvh”. That is true for
every Linux command. You asked it to run a program names “rpm-Uvh”, not “rpm”.
If at all possible, you should copy and paste suggested commands. If not
possible, then read them carefully. I know that a single space can sometimes be
hard to see, which is why I usually use two when suggesting a command.
You can always tell if a given command (program) is installed by opening a
console and entering the command ‘which ndiswrapper’ (for example). If it
returns a file string like ‘/usr/bin/ndiswrapper’, then it is available. This is
not foolproof as the program may be installed, but located in one of the
directories only searched by root. To see if that is the case, you can ‘sudo
which xxxxyy’ to see if root has access to the program xxxxyy.
Hang in there. It certainly is daunting, but everything is logical. Most of this
complexity is forced on Linux users by the wireless vendors who refuse to make
drivers for their devices available with GPL licenses. With your BCM4310, it is
even worse - Broadcom doesn’t even provide the specifications. Most other types
of devices are easier to program, thus the drivers have been reverse engineered
and open-source drivers are available. Even with the roadblocks, Linux is
getting better.
Larry
And another thing…
the HP driver comes as an exe, not a zip file. So Suse doesn’t know what to do with it. I tried opening it in W XP but it then tries to install and won’t show me the .inf file which is I presume what I need. So stuck again!
ddclutch wrote:
> And another thing…
> the HP driver comes as an exe, not a zip file. So Suse doesn’t know
> what to do with it. I tried opening it in W XP but it then tries to
> install and won’t show me the .inf file which is I presume what I need.
> So stuck again!
Run the command ‘wine HP_driver_file_name’. If the installer does not let you
choose the unpack directory, the files will be unpacked into a directory under
‘.wine/drive_c/…’. You will need the .inf and .sys files.
Larry
Doh! I should have spotted the space. But now knowing that a command needs to be followed by a space I will watch out for that in future. So I AM learning!!
In this instance I cannot cut and paste as I am on different laptops.
I used the which command to look for an installed ndiswrapper and got a return of "no ndiswrapper in ( -/-/-/- )
running the rpm -Uvh ndis*.rpm I get “File not found by Glob” I presume that the * is a wildcard so it should find them as they all start with ndis.
Worked round that by typing the full file name in each case and they seemed to install OK
I am getting a “Command not found” when I use wine.
Maybe my version of Suse (SED 10) doesn’t have wine.
Is there some way I can bring up a list of available commands on my system to check? Is there an alternative to Wine?
For linux commands have a read here Linux Command Line | Basic, Advanced, Useful commands & wine will need to be installed before it will work. If it is not installed you may get the "command not found " . If you want, e-mail me the .exe file & i will see if i can get the files you need. If you need a step-by-step for installing with ndiswrapper,let me know, i will try to write one for you
Andy
Neillrickets wrote:
got it working with ndiswrapper once I had learnt to use suse, it was quite straightforward using the driver from the HP website.
Neil, Good to see you got yours working! If you are still watching this thread which driver did you eventually use?
My HP 2133 is using the exact same Broadcom card / version as yours: BCM4310 USB Controller [14e4:4315] (rev 01)
The HP driver for the XP version of this device lists it as using a different network card and I do know that HP use a different spec version of the 2133 Hardware for their XP versions.
Which driver worked for you?
Guy
Thanks for the offer Andy,
I was away yesterday so haven’t looked at this again yet. I will do some more reading first on your suggested links and see if I can work it out, before you need waste more of your time typing up a “how to” just for me! But thanks for the offer, much appreciated!
I have now extracted the contents of my driver.exe file, although whether it is the correct driver I am not at all sure. It is the XP version provided by HP for the HP 2133 netbook, but the version numbering doesn’t match the BCM4310 (rev 01) that my HP 2133 is using. I wish Neillrickets had posted which driver he successfully used!
I also think that I have installed ndiswrapper. I couldn’t get the NDISGTK front end to load but maybe I can operate it from a terminal.
Typing ndiswrapper -1 gives me the usage OPTION list.
typing ndiswrapper -v gives me:
utils version: 1.9, utils version needed by module: 1.9
module details …version 1.48
So does this indicate a problem between the module version (1.48) and the ndiswrapper version I have installed? (1.9) Or am I misinterpreting the language?
many thanks to Larry, i got my wireless device working now 
Well, I am still struggling. I have now read so much I realise that I don’t specifically understand what the problem is.
I did load ndiswrapper, but have not fed it with any new driver inf or sys files yet as I am not sure which to use or that the driver is wrong in the first place. So for now I assume it is still set up with the original driver files that it came with. (it is a new machine)
The network card is Broadcom, but which one is confusing me. On the label on the bottom of the case it says BCM94312MCG. but lspci shows it as BCM4310 (rev01). It also showed up as 14e4:4315 (rev 01) but I forget where I found that. So is it a 4310, a 4312 or a 4315?? who knows!
I have found that the driver it has pre-loaded is wl. This shows in dmesg and also when I use the GUI for Hardware Information.
The problem is this. Most of the time it will not make a wireless connection. The 2 monitor icons show “no network connection”
The GUI for Network Drivers shows: Modprobe: yes, Module: modprobe wl, and active: no From this I assume that the driver is there but just isn’t being activated.
Occassionally the thing wakes up and works perfectly! It then shows strong signals from my router and picks up several others in the area. My network configuration is all correct, it is not an IP problem and nothing to do with firewalls. It also works fine when I by-pass the wireless with an ethernet cable direct to the router.
Any thoughts as to what the problem really is?
Looking at what you wrote,it would be a good idea to remove all drivers you have installed for the device & start again,as,it appears to work intermittently. This could be due to driver conflicts,so, removing all & starting again ,using ndiswrapper & the windows driver. Going by lspci, which is saying it’s a BCM4310,so use these windows drivers with ndiswrapper
Andy