Wireless on Inspiron 1501

English Network/Internet
1

Wireless is possible on a Dell Inspiron 1501 with the Broadcom chip running SuSE 11.0.

For a very easy, step-by-step setup process, visit:

http://opensuse1501.wordpress.com/

Scroll down to the August 3 article titled ‘Setting up wireless with ndiswrapper’.

Depending on the type of wireless network you connect to, you may need to take one more step, and that is to use the Connections applet in the tray to provide configuration information such as ESSID, encryption mode, passphrase, etc.

I have tried many other procedures, and read many other explanations, but this is the first one that actually worked for me. To save typing, just copy and paste the commands from the article into a root terminal.

I use x86_64 SuSE 11.0, but the procedure should work with equal ease on 10.x and on 32-bit SuSE.

It still puzzles me why Novell-SuSE refuses to provide a one-click solution to the installation of proprietary drivers. If tiny PCLinuxOS can do it, anyone can.

2

thank you for linking to my blog :),
I think that the only reason that pcoslinux can use the propitiatory drivers is that they are small (if Novel tried it they would get sued).

3

NovellWinch wrote:
> Wireless is possible on a Dell Inspiron 1501 with the Broadcom chip
> running SuSE 11.0.
>
> For a very easy, step-by-step setup process, visit:
>
> http://opensuse1501.wordpress.com/
>
> Scroll down to the August 3 article titled ‘Setting up wireless with
> ndiswrapper’.
>
> Depending on the type of wireless network you connect to, you may need
> to take one more step, and that is to use the Connections applet in the
> tray to provide configuration information such as ESSID, encryption
> mode, passphrase, etc.
>
> I have tried many other procedures, and read many other explanations,
> but this is the first one that actually worked for me. To save typing,
> just copy and paste the commands from the article into a root terminal.
>
> I use x86_64 SuSE 11.0, but the procedure should work with equal ease
> on 10.x and on 32-bit SuSE.
>
> It still puzzles me why Novell-SuSE refuses to provide a one-click
> solution to the installation of proprietary drivers. If tiny PCLinuxOS
> can do it, anyone can.

There is a valid reason. OpenSUSE is committed to using open-source drivers.
When you use ndiswrapper, you are doing exactly the opposite. In fact it is
worse because you are allowing the Windows driver unlimited, kernel access to
your machine. Any bugs in that driver and you get oopses or crashes, the Linux
equivalent to the Blue Screen of Death.

Larry

4

the driver does have some issues but it is sadly the only reliable solution for my laptop on Linux (better using a Windows wireless driver than running windows)

5

tomdwright wrote:
> the driver does have some issues but it is sadly the only reliable
> solution for my laptop on Linux (better using a Windows wireless driver
> than running windows)

What does ‘/sbin/lspci’ say about your wireless?

Larry

6

It is wonderful to be pure of heart and to live strictly according to the gospel of open source, but it is not always practical. Therefore, so long as SuSE forces me to make a choice between ndiswrapper and no wireless, I will take my chances with possible flaws in the bcmwl5 driver that works fine in Windows.

The obvious solution to this problem is for Dell, and other manufacturers, to require Broadcom to provide drivers and specifications to the Linux community as a condition of purchase of the company’s chips.

7

NovellWinch wrote:
> It is wonderful to be pure of heart and to live strictly according to
> the gospel of open source, but it is not always practical. Therefore,
> so long as SuSE forces me to make a choice between ndiswrapper and no
> wireless, I will take my chances with possible flaws in the bcmwl5
> driver that works fine in Windows.
>
> The obvious solution to this problem is for Dell, and other
> manufacturers, to require Broadcom to provide drivers and
> specifications to the Linux community as a condition of purchase of the
> company’s chips.

Obviously, Broadcom is not going to change their business model.

Now if you answer the question I asked in the previous message, then
we will know if you need to use ndiswrapper.

Incidentally, many drivers that work fine with Windows die horribly
under ndiswrapper due to the differences in memory layout between
Linux and Windows. A harmless buffer overrun in run absolutely kills
the other.

Larry

8

Hmm…it may be ‘obvious’ to you, but not to me. By stating it
that way, you become an apologist for Broadcom, which is
far from the needed approach to fight the battle, in my view.

Thus, like some others, I salute the distros that take the pragmatic
approach and maximize their LiveCD’s chance of having wireless
working right out-of-the-box.

Why should Linux community suffer because M$ is in a monopolistic position?

My 2-cents…
Dave

9

cookdav wrote:
>
> Why should Linux community suffer because M$ is in a monopolist
> position?

And what makes you think Microsoft has anything to do with this?

Broadcom refuses to release the specifications for their devices to
protect their intellectual property. Why they refuse to allow anyone
to redistribute their firmware is a mystery. The team that has
reverse-engineered the driver has been unable to get them to change
their policies. In fact, we are very close to having an open-source
firmware that we will be able to distribute.

As an aid to Linux users, Broadcom has posted a hybrid driver that has
some parts in open source, but relies on a binary blob to obfuscate
the details of the device. I don’t find that acceptable.

Larry

10

lwfinger wrote:Obviously, Broadcom is not going to change their business model.

If major customers such as Dell insist that Linux drivers be provided, it is likely that Broadcom will do so. Chip sales are more valuable than a stack of business plans.

Now if you answer the question I asked in the previous message, then we will know if you need to use ndiswrapper.

I think the question was originally posed to tomdwright, but here’s the network info from lspci on my system:

05:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM94311MCG wlan mini-PCI (rev 01)

08:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4401-B0 100Base-TX (rev 02)

11

NovellWinch wrote:
> I think the question was originally posed to tomdwright, but here’s the
> network info from -lspci- on my system:
>
> 05:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM94311MCG wlan
> mini-PCI (rev 01)
>
> 08:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4401-B0 100Base-TX
> (rev 02)

The BCM4311/1 will work perfectly. Install the firmware and configure
with YaST (and NetworkManager if that is the route you take).

I’m using one of those at the moment and ndiswrapper has never been
used for a Broadcom device on this computer.

Larry

12

I fear you may have made a couple leaps beyond my knowledge.

By “Install the firmware”, I suspect you are referring to a process that involves fwcutter. I’ve tried that previously, but with no success. Perhaps you can provide a link to a firmware installation procedure that is relatively foolproof.

Can firmware and ndiswrapper co-exist, or must one be removed to use the other?

Beyond that, what will I or other users gain by installing the firmware? Firmware sounds like a more elegant solution, but are there any drawbacks or limitations to it?

As sort of a benchmark, let me note that using ndiswrapper the current wireless speed is close to the maximum for a 54g broadcast, the computer recognizes draft-n access points , and it is able to connect to access points not broadcasting their SSID.

13

Doesn’t the broadcom chip in the 1501 work without ndiswrapper, and for that matter better?

I have an inspiron 1501, and I didn’t have to use ndiswrapper. If memory serves, it was a matter of installing b43-fwcutter and running one, maybe two commands.

14

NovellWinch wrote:
>
> I fear you may have made a couple leaps beyond my knowledge.
>
> By “Install the firmware”, I suspect you are referring to a process
> that involves fwcutter. I’ve tried that previously, but with no
> success. Perhaps you can provide a link to a firmware installation
> procedure that is relatively foolproof.

If you had read the stickies at the beginning of the forum, you would
have seen that as long as you have a network connection, installing
the firmware is as simple as opening a terminal and typing the
one-line command

sudo /usr/sbin/install_bcm43xx_firmware

> Can firmware and ndiswrapper co-exist, or must one be removed to use
> the other?

Firmware is not the driver, but ndiswrapper and the drivers ssb and
b43 cannot all be loaded. It must be one or the other.

> Beyond that, what will I or other users gain by installing the
> firmware? Firmware sounds like a more elegant solution, but are there
> any drawbacks or limitations to it?

Firmware is the code used by the cpu embedded in the chip. The reason
it is not distributed is that Broadcom holds the copyright and refuses
to let anyone redistribute it. We get it only be using one of the
drivers that Broadcom makes available for other systems and extracting
the firmware that is contained within. Incidentally, fwcutter is the
program that extracts the firmware, but with the script above, you do
not have to execute fwcutter directly. The driver has two main
benefits. When the kernel is updated, the driver will be automatically
updated. The second benefit is that your kernel is no longer tainted
and kernel developers will look at any kernel bugs that bite your system.

> As sort of a benchmark, let me note that using ndiswrapper the current
> wireless speed is close to the maximum for a 54g broadcast, the
> computer recognizes draft-n access points , and it is able to connect
> to access points not broadcasting their SSID.

All of that will be essentially the same with the b43 driver. I get
transfers of ~23 Mb/s, which is close to the 27 Mb/s maximum for an
802.11g system. It uses the 802.11g fallback mode of the draft-n AP,
and connecting to a hidden SSID is a function of user-mode software,
not the driver. BTW, hiding your SSID does absolutely nothing to help
your security, and it increases the chance that one of your neighbors
will setup on the same channel that you are using and give you
interference.

Larry