Complete newbie to linux... I'm trying to convert from the darkside (XP). But now I'm having trouble finding driver for my Dell Truemobile 1300, which is same as Broadcom BCM4306 from sources (http://www.siliconstrategies.com/pre...newswire/62258).

It is one of those 802.11b/g miniPCI card for my laptop.

Thanks thanks thanks!!!!

This is another case of pure broadcom evil. They're being rather unsupportive of the Linux community by not releasing enough spec information for anyone to be able to build a driver upon. In short, I would grab a pcmcia orinoco silver and not hold my breath on broadcom becoming un-weenie.

Cheers,

Finegan

actually, I have the same Broadcom wireless 802.11a/b/g adapter, and it does work in Redhat (kinda)

When I first installed Redhat 7.3, I did not have the wired Broadcom adapter plugged in, only the wireless was active. After the initial install, the Broadcom wireless worked just fine. I connected to many different AP's and everything was cool. After about a week, I had to plug in the wired adapter and since then, the wireless has never worked. I've tried so many different things to get the wireless to work again, but no luck.

The part that gets me is that the wireless has worked, so I know it can. If it had never worked, that would be one thing, but it has!!!

If I come up with anything, I'll post here and let everyone know.

...josh

I wondered if you found anything for the Truemobile 1300 minipci (or is yours the minipci???)

I'm considering returning my inspiron 5100 for an 8500, but i don't know if everything would work in that under redhat 9??

thanks!

Jonathan Andrew Wolter

If it mentions Broadcom under the wireless ethernet controller in the output of:

/sbin/lspci

It is an unsupported card in Linux currently, and that's all because of Broadcom. If you could call Dell and complain that they're buying parts from buttheads, (couched in better terms will probably help), that might work better. I also know someone who complained to his Laptop manufacturer enough and they shipped him a well supported Cisco PCMCIA wireless card.

Cheers,

Finegan

Ok then the big question if there are so many problems with the dell then what laptop that doesnt cost an arm and a leg to run rh and openoffice well on
Thank you

There's no real problem with Dell, they're probably the best buy out there, its just that they've played ping-pong between the two major wireless mini-pci card devices. One is a well supported Harris Prism 2.5 card, the other is a Broadcom. Heck, buy it without onboard wireless and pick up a pcmcia card for 1/3 as much as what dell would charge you for the internal board.

Cheers,

Finegan

so, is anyone out there geek enough to know what kind of information is needed to get development going? maybe we can "social engineer" it out of them...

I got mine working on Redhat 7.3 and 9 using the "older DEC xxxxx" driver. Let me know if that works for you. MIne is currently working.

jkarp,

I'm pretty certain that you don't have this exact Dell Truemobile, there are about 3 or 4 of them... prism2 versions, Orinoco cards... I stay pretty on top of the wireless cards, and seeing as how the broadcom chipset is about 6 months old and DEC was eaten by Compaq about 4 years ago, I really doubt you've got the same card.

Trust me, I would love to be wrong, but I just don't want anyone out there to get their hopes up.

Cheers,

Finegan

Looking at my device properties within Windows, it says:
Dell TrueMobile 1400 Dual Band WLAN Mini-PCI Card.
I connect to my WAP at 54 Mbps. The one thing that might be making a difference here is that i'm running Redhat 7.3 and 9 on Virtual PC, not standalone.

jkarp (or anyone else who got a 1400 running (or a 1300 - that's what i've got)) what specs did you use to get your wireless chip running? IRQ / Mem / anything else?

thx. not getting hopes up - just making an attempt

and i'm using vmware too

He's running Linux ontop of Windows using the emulator, VirtualPC? Vmware does this also. The emulator will pass along the device as a very old DEC roamabout. Make no mistake, this device is not working under Linux, its working under windows. Broadcom still refuses to release the specs necessary for anyone to write a driver, and blackboxing a driver is a nightmare, just take a look at what the acx100 guys have to deal with: http://acx100.sourceforge.net

Cheers,

Finegan

http://clockwatching.net/~fin/gallery/album10/sf2

So I have the TrueMoble 1300 - if I run XP -> Vmware -> Red Hat 9.0 the card should work? Are there any special configs?

Thanks

Did anyone try out the Linux driver for BCM4401 found at Broadcom's website? Its version 2.0.5. It may work with BCM4301 which is what I have.

http://www.broadcom.com/