BCM4322 on new Dell Studio 17 Laptop, Fedora 10

SlowCoder · 04-14-2009, 02:23 PM

I just bought a new Dell Studio 17 laptop that comes with the Broadcom 4322 wireless chip. I'm having difficulty getting it to work, either with the hybrid Broadcom Linux driver, or with ndiswrapper.

First try: I downloaded the 32bit driver from http://www.broadcom.com/support/802.11/linux_sta.php and followed the directions (readme.txt). Compile appears to have gone fine. When I try to activate the compiled module I get the following:

Code:

# insmod wl.ko
insmod: error inserting 'wl.ko': -1 Unknown symbol in module

Laptop is fully updated, and I verified that kernel source used to compile module matches the current running kernel.
How do I fix this?

Second try: I installed ndiswrapper and downloaded the 32bit XP driver. blacklisted b43 & b43legacy. ndiswrapper shows:

Code:

# ndiswrapper -l
bcmwl5 : driver installed
	device (14E4:432B) present

which indicates that the driver is successfully installed.

ifconfig does not list any wireless adapters.

What's next?

kandiru · 04-14-2009, 02:59 PM

Hello,

here

http://www.slacky.eu/wikislack/index...43xx_e_WPA-PSK

you can find a guide about Wireless with broadcom 43XX and Wpa_SUpplicant.

I followed it and everything went right.

Unfortunately it's written in Italian: the commands to give are quite clear: anyway if you need help do not hesitate to ask: I'll do what I can.

Bye

David

SlowCoder · 04-14-2009, 03:46 PM

EDIT TO THIS POST - Please read next post ...

I figured it out. I stupidly forgot to add the 80211_crypt_tkip module. After doing that, the wl.ko module inserted without error. All's good, I think.

SlowCoder · 04-19-2009, 12:21 PM

Different laptop, same model, different problem ...

Laptop has same Fedora 10, all updates applied. On this one, I've installed gcc, kernel-headers (matches current kernel), kernel-devel (matches current kernel):

Code:

# yum list |grep kernel
kernel.i686                       2.6.27.5-117.fc10    installed                
kernel.i686                       2.6.27.19-170.2.35.fc10
kernel.i686                       2.6.27.21-170.2.56.fc10
kernel-devel.i686                 2.6.27.21-170.2.56.fc10
kernel-firmware.noarch            2.6.27.21-170.2.56.fc10
kernel-headers.i386               2.6.27.21-170.2.56.fc10
kerneloops.i386                   0.12-1.fc10          installed                
arm-gp2x-linux-kernel-headers.noarch
buildsys-build-rpmfusion-kerneldevpkgs-current.i586
buildsys-build-rpmfusion-kerneldevpkgs-current.i686
kernel.i586                       2.6.27.21-170.2.56.fc10
kernel-PAE.i686                   2.6.27.21-170.2.56.fc10
kernel-PAE-devel.i686             2.6.27.21-170.2.56.fc10
kernel-PAEdebug.i686              2.6.27.21-170.2.56.fc10
kernel-PAEdebug-devel.i686        2.6.27.21-170.2.56.fc10
kernel-debug.i686                 2.6.27.21-170.2.56.fc10
kernel-debug-devel.i686           2.6.27.21-170.2.56.fc10
kernel-devel.i586                 2.6.27.21-170.2.56.fc10
kernel-doc.noarch                 2.6.27.21-170.2.56.fc10
yum-kernel-module.noarch          1.1.19-1.fc10        updates

When I try to compile the Linux_STA driver, I get the following error:

Code:

make: Entering directory `/usr/src/kernels/2.6.27.21-170.2.56.fc10.i686'
make: *** No rule to make target `Wireless'.  Stop.
make: Leaving directory `/usr/src/kernels/2.6.27.21-170.2.56.fc10.i686'

PTrenholme · 04-19-2009, 02:05 PM

Since F8, Fedora has defaulted to installing the b43 driver when any bcm43?? hardware is detected. But the b43 driver relies on proprietary Broadcom "microcode" that the Fedora project will not ship because of the proprietary license. What they do ship is the b43_fwcutter that will extract the microcode from the ko file and place it in /lib/firmware for the driver to use. (See man b43_fwcutter for details.)

So, bottom line, all you needed to do was follow the instruction in the installation guide, run b43_fwcutter specifying /lib/firmware as the output directory, and reboot.

As it is, you will need to remove ndiswrapper and either the Broadcom-supplied driver or the b43 driver since, of course, you can only have one driver trying to access the same hardware. (It's always a good idea to remove any old driver before installing a new one.)

<edit>
Note: You may need to add b43 to /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist if you don't want it loaded during the boot.
</edit>

As to you second problem, no clue, but -- if you're using F10, and Broadcom, I'd suggest try using with the b43 driver that shipped with F10.

SlowCoder · 04-19-2009, 02:31 PM

I already blacklisted b43 and b43legacy. The installation instructions as given by Broadcom say nothing about fwcutter. I successfully installed on one laptop using the instructions. Instructions and source I am using are found here: http://www.broadcom.com/support/802.11/linux_sta.php

ndiswrapper is installed, but there are no drivers associated with it.

SlowCoder · 04-20-2009, 08:40 AM

I was able to copy the wl.ko driver from the good laptop to the other one and get the wireless working. However, this doesn't solve the issue of not being able to recompile the driver on that computer, since I will be doing it remotely, and each time the kernel is updated.

PTrenholme · 04-20-2009, 11:58 AM

O.K., that's cool.

Did you look at the Makefile that make is running to see where Wireless is being used as a target on both laptops? Perhaps a diff of the Makefiles would be suggestive. Also, make sure you're using the correct wireless.h header file since that file has been rapidly changing in recent kernal releases. (Although, since that file is part of the kernel_devel package, it's very unlikely that you've got a problem there, and, anyhow, the error you quote is from make, not the compiler. I'm just mentioning it because vendor-supplied code has been lagging behind the recent changes in wireless.h. [The problem is much more evident when you try to use vendor code with the 2.6.28 kernels.])

katagun · 06-11-2009, 06:19 AM

I had a similar problem with my Dell Studio laptop runninf Fedora 11 x86_64. The b43 driver didn't work, the Broadcom hybrid x86_64 driver didn't compile (still don't know why), however I found a solution.

What I did was blacklist b43:

Quote:

cd /etc/modprobe.d/
nano blacklist.conf

I've appended one line to the blacklist.conf:

Quote:

blacklist b43

Then I had to enable the fusion free and non-free repositories. You can do this here:
http://rpmfusion.org/Configuration/

Then download and install the broadcom-wl driver package:

Quote:

yum install broadcom-wl

Then reboot and hopefully it works!