Yet another broadcom wireless card

Hello. Trying to get wireless working. I’d appreciate the help. :slight_smile:

I can find the device with lspci -v


>lspci -v
05:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN (rev 01)
	Subsystem: Dell Wireless 1390 WLAN Mini-Card
	Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 18
	Memory at d0200000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16]
	Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 2
	Capabilities: [58] MSI: Enable- Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit-
	Capabilities: [d0] Express Legacy Endpoint, MSI 00
	Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting
	Capabilities: [13c] Virtual Channel
	Kernel driver in use: b43-pci-bridge

08:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4401-B0 100Base-TX (rev 02)
	Subsystem: Dell Device 01f5
	Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 64, IRQ 21
	Memory at d0300000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8]
	Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 2
	Kernel driver in use: b44

>uname -r
2.6.37.1-1.2-default

I am trying to use the wl-broadcom driver. In the Software Manager I have broadcom-wl and broadcom-wl-kmp-default selected.

iwconfig returns the following


>iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

In the Hardware Information provided by YaST for the wireless card wich is only found under the pci section I can see two modules section. One with modprobe ssb and one with modprobe wl. The module ssb is blacklisted in /etc/modprobe.d/50-broadcom-wl-blacklist.conf. However I believe it is being pulled in by b44 which is used by the wired ethernet as can be seen by pcils -v posted above.

Here is an export from Hardware Information.


32: PCI 500.0: 0280 Network controller
  [Created at pci.318]
  Unique ID: Ddhb.AUabv0M9SM3
  Parent ID: H0_h.bsmdjgJdggA
  SysFS ID: /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:06.0/0000:05:00.0
  SysFS BusID: 0000:05:00.0
  Hardware Class: network
  Model: "Dell Wireless 1390 WLAN Mini-Card"
  Vendor: pci 0x14e4 "Broadcom"
  Device: pci 0x4311 "BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN"
  SubVendor: pci 0x1028 "Dell"
  SubDevice: pci 0x0007 "Wireless 1390 WLAN Mini-Card"
  Revision: 0x01
  Driver: "b43-pci-bridge"
  Driver Modules: "ssb"
  Memory Range: 0xd0200000-0xd0203fff (rw,non-prefetchable)
  IRQ: 18 (2 events)
  Module Alias: "pci:v000014E4d00004311sv00001028sd00000007bc02sc80i00"
  Driver Info #0:
    Driver Status: ssb is active
    Driver Activation Cmd: "modprobe ssb"
  Driver Info #1:
    Driver Status: wl is active
    Driver Activation Cmd: "modprobe wl"
  Config Status: cfg=no, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown
  Attached to: #14 (PCI bridge)

Here is the export from the wired card.


33: PCI 800.0: 0200 Ethernet controller
  [Created at pci.318]
  Unique ID: rBUF.HQwXbECfpC4
  Parent ID: qscc.ULOo3yhA66C
  SysFS ID: /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.4/0000:08:00.0
  SysFS BusID: 0000:08:00.0
  Hardware Class: network
  Model: "Broadcom BCM4401-B0 100Base-TX"
  Vendor: pci 0x14e4 "Broadcom"
  Device: pci 0x170c "BCM4401-B0 100Base-TX"
  SubVendor: pci 0x1028 "Dell"
  SubDevice: pci 0x01f5
  Revision: 0x02
  Driver: "b44"
  Driver Modules: "ssb", "b44"
  Device File: eth0
  Memory Range: 0xd0300000-0xd0301fff (rw,non-prefetchable)
  IRQ: 21 (59 events)
  HW Address: 00:15:c5:c3:8f:f6
  Link detected: yes
  Module Alias: "pci:v000014E4d0000170Csv00001028sd000001F5bc02sc00i00"
  Driver Info #0:
    Driver Status: b44 is active
    Driver Activation Cmd: "modprobe b44"
  Config Status: cfg=no, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown
  Attached to: #26 (PCI bridge)

Any additional information I could provide or suggestions as to what I can do to get the wireless card up and running would be apreasheated.[/size][/size]

I fixed it.
When I tagged this item with bcm4311 I pulled up another thread tagged with bcm4311 and saw the command to install the firmware so that the open source driver can be used. After that I saw that the firmware can also be installed with the package manager.
I installed the firmware and removed wl-broadcom and next time I booted the computer the Network Manager poped up a notice saying it was already connected to the WiFi.
So woot.

good work

enjoy