Broadcom 4312 on Debian AMD64?
 

Hello,

I just purchased a new laptop with an integrated Broadcom 4312 chip. My old machine had a 4318 chip, so I've been around the block and know how to set it up with ndiswrapper and the openwrt drivers via fwcutter. I was using 32 bit OSes exclusively with my old system. I'm now using Debian 64-bit.

I first tried b43-fwcutter from the repos. It fetch the firmware and seemed to extract it without any complaining, but my card wasn't recognized. Then I tried to extract it manually via command line. That finished with no errors, and placed drivers in the /lib/firmware directory. Still not recognized. Next, I compiled ndiswrapper from source. After configuring, 'ndiswrapper -l' showed "device present, driver present.' My card was now recognized, but wouldn't find any networks with both wicd or command line configuration, finished of with a 'dhclient'. No leases were obtained.

Anyway, I figured it might be because I'm running 64-bit, so now I'm trying to install the official driver from Broadcom's website. They even had a 64-bit .zip for my specific chip version! My problem is that it says to run the command

which gives me the error:

I do have kernel headers that match my kernel exactly and gcc, make, etc installed.

Sorry for the long-winded post. Does anyone have any pointers? And has anyone had success running a broadcom chip successfully on 64-bit Linux?

Thanks a bunch!

You would be better of trying the wl module and compiling it yourself. Overall, I like it better than ndiswrapper, though speed is sometimes too slow.
Download and use module-asstiant to compile it.

Thanks for the reply. I believe this is the driver I'm currently trying to install. The readme says that I will end up with a file named "wl.ko" after the make process. I used module-assistant as per the instructions...


:scratch:

I read that not having a configure file in the source directory can cause this error (with compiling in general), but there was no configure file included. There is a single makefile and then a /lib and /src subdirectory.

Forget reading - it's all <expletive deleted>. The docs are up to kernel 2.6.24 or 25, the b43 really started to work from 2.6.27, and the bugs were mainly ironed by 2.6.29. I've been there, done that, got the T-shirt.

I am sending on a broadcom 4312 and have it running on ssb & b43 under slamd64 and fedora. I would suggest starting by checking where they hid the chip!

lsusb - always gives me a Bluetooth/WLAN entry on this HP6715S.

When the 4312 is happy, and the kernel has created wlan0, then I get an entry on the pci bus. lspci then shows me a 4312. No wlan0, no entry on pci, no go.

The link is B43_PCI_BRIDGE - a hidden option you never see in the new kernels. Move up to 2.6.29.2 - it's getting good recommendations.

in /etc/modprobe.d/wlan0, I ended up with
install b43 /sbin/modprobe -i ssb; /sbin/modprobe -i b43; /sbin/modprobe -i btusb

Problems stopped once that went in.

ssb, BTW Is Sonics Silicon Backplane in kernel config speak. Don't ask me what it is, or does. Read the help and check for the b43 stuff. Every option depends on 25 things and selects another 15 :-/.

The kernel make error on "make -C /lib/modules/<2.6.xx.xx>/build M=`pwd`" is because you are in the wrong place. (I suffered here too!!)

Build 2.6.29.2. Then do not run 'make clean'. Boot on it, and check the /lib/modules/<version>/build link is valid. Change to the directory in the Broadcom driver WITH THE MAKEFILE in it. Execute that line. It does a process cd to the kernel, but builds in the local files. You don't need that driver, or ndiswrapper at all, btw. If you're going that road, have fun, and write it up somewhere. Nobody else did.

Sorry for the length. It is a bitch.

Not at all:cool:

Yeah, I actually figured out that my paths were fishy. I fixed that and it actually started to compile, but generated new errors (can't remember specifically now). The ssb/b43 combo has worked well enough in the past for me, but not on this Lenny AMD64 install. In the end, I just threw Jaunty 64 on, and the thing worked right out of the box. There's something I don't really like about using Ubuntu, I can't put my finger on it, but sometimes it just gets things done.

It's the fact that all knowledge is hidden from the user. They don't even give you root. And when ubuntu lands jammy side down (As it most definitely did here) then things are really sad and you have to fight the system to fix them. I'm on Slackware (Slamd64 actually) and everything lands off centre but you can fix it fairly handy. Lenny and Jaunty I take it are pet names for some distro. I gether you upgraded. Glad you got going.

I think you just articulated what I was thinking pretty well! I've had cases in the past where I've felt like the training wheels were welded on (with Ubuntu). Lenny is just the current release name of Debian, which I'm quite fond of. When it works for me, anyways.

I'll probably give Fedora 11 a shot when it's released soon. 10 was a superb release!