Hello everyone and thank you so much for helping me install slackware on my Dell Latitude D630 laptop. So far I've read tons and tons about how to install the drivers and have gone through many steps, but none seem to be working.

Checking through the linux terminal with lspci and lspci -n, I've determined that I have a BCM4312. But when I check the device manager, it says I've got a Dell wireless 1395 WLAN mini-card. Does the lspci search for only the chipset and could that be different than the actual device? Hm....

Anyway, I've run through the alien guy's wiki that's been posted several times and have set up the WPA key in the wireless directory. I've also seen some people using fwcutter on here? I'm not sure what that's for or how to use it... I think I've installed ndiswrapper, but am not sure how to use it. I've also been using this guys wiki http://jomcode.com/fadhil/?p=59 because it's specific to my device, but once I get to the final step of building the LKM with: make -C /lib/modules/`uname -r`/build M=`pwd` , nothing happens, it says it can't find the directory.

It's really frustrating getting to the last step of a wiki and having it not work. Does anyone know what might be causing this?

Did you try wicd?

I had a similiar problem with this dell inspiron 6400 and PRO/Wireless 3945ABG.

Installed wicd as-is, then it showed up in kde, configured it and since then it works flawlessly, though I am using fvwm.

Best, er1ch

This actually sounds right. Dell is a frequent user of Broadcom chipsets for their own cards. The card model and the chipset it uses are almost always two different things. What is really evil is that some manufacturers use different chipsets in the same card model. Linksys used to do this a lot.
OK, you've got 3 different drivers you can use on the 4312. There is ndiswrapper, b43 and Broadcom's sta driver. What is important to remember is that you can only have one of these loaded at a time. You can have all three installed, but if more than one loads, you'll have drivers fighting over the hardware and extreme weirdness will result. Check the output of lsmod to see what is actually loading. Now for a quick overview:

Ndiswrapper - This should be a last resort for this chipset. Basically ndiswrapper allows a Windows driver to function under Linux. The upshot is that when you install ndiswrapper, you also have to install the Windows driver. Ndiswrapper all by itself won't do anything.

B43 (and b43-legacy) - This is the driver in the Linux kernel that was developed by reverse engineering from Broadcom specs. What is unfortunate about this driver is that it requires firmware in order to function, but Broadcom's licensing won't allow any distro to distribute firmware. This is where fwcutter comes in. You use fwcutter to run against a Broadcom Windows driver and create the appropriate firmware files. The real bugger about b43 is that it makes it appear as if your wireless card is there and functional but without the firmware, nothing works.

STA - This is the Broadcom driver that your blog references (and is the one I use). In general it is the simplest of all three in that it doesn't require any extras to get it functioning. However, b43 does need to be blacklisted otherwise a conflict will result.

If you post the actual error, maybe we can spot what is going on. I know first hand that this driver does work on a stock Slackware 13 install. By the way, are you running 32 or 64 bit Slackware? Posting the output of lsmod would also help.

lsmod returns:

Module
i915
drm
snd_seq_dummy
snd_seq_oss
snd_seq_midi_event
snd_seq
snd_seq_device
snd_pcm_oss
snd_mixer_oss
ipv6
cpufreq_ondemand
acpi_cpufreq
freq_table
ppdev
lp
parport_pc
parport
fuse
joydev
pcmcia
snd_hda_codec_idt
snd_hda_intel
snd_hda_codec
yenta_socket
snd_hwdep
rsrc_nonstatic
snd_pcm
snd_timer
dell_laptop
snd
r_oss,snd_hda_codec_idt,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_whdep,snd_pcm,snd_timer,rfkill
soundcore
dcdbas
psmouse
rtc_cmos
thermal
snd_page_alloc
i2c_i801
tg3
rtc_core
video
sg
processor
evdev
serio_raw
pcmcia_core
rtc_lib
output
libphy
intel_agp
wmi
thermal_sys
button
ac
hwmon
battery


____________


Here are the modules that are returned, I had to write them by hand because I've lost my thumbdrive, so I didn't include the size or what is using them. I'm not sure if that would be important enough to include or not. Let me know if it is and I'll write them up too.

I forgot to mention, I am running 64bit.

When I get to the step to enter:
make -C /lib/modules/`uname -r`/build M=`pwd`

It gives the error:
make: *** /lib/modules/uname -r/bulid: No such file or directory. Stop.

I'm in the hybrid-portsrc-x86_64-v5.10.91.9.3 directory and it does show the three listed contents with ls no problem. I'm not sure why it's showing this.

That's weird. You don't have ANY driver for a 4312 in that list. In fact I don't see anything that looks like a wireless driver. If we get sta installed this isn't a big problem, but I guess that I would have expected at least b43 to show up. Have you already blacklisted it?

Again, this is odd. From that error, bash doesn't seem to be evaluating the uname -r command. Double check that those ticks around uname -r and pwd are all backticks (`) and not apostrophes ('). When you put a bash command between backticks, bash is supposed to evaluate the command and use the result. From the error, make is literally looking for a path with uname -r in it instead of evaluating it and using that value.

I did already blacklist them. I think you might have found the problem though! I have been using the ' instead of `. I'll give it a shot later tonight and see if this solves all my problems. Thank you for catching that mistake.

Ok, so I changed from using ' to ` for the make -C... part and it worked great. I'm now able to see the wl.ko file and made double sure that the b43, b43legacy and b43xx where gone with the rmmod command as well as ndiswrapper.

I wasn't able to do modprobe ieee80211_crypt_tkip as it was saying it didn't exist but was able to use, modprobe lib80211 instead as it tells me to do in the readme file... I don't know if that will make a difference. I was able to do insmod wl.ko fine.

However, after doing this and typing ifconfig, it only pulled up the eth0 and lo devices, not the wlan0. when I typed lsmod, it pulled up the same things that I wrote here before, plus ieee80211_crypt_tkip and another form of ieee89211 I think it was l80211 or something.

From what the instructions said, it made it sound like I'd have to wait only a few moments and then the network manager would pick up a wireless signal, but none were found. I'm guessing that's something different in Slackware from the debian the blogger was using.

To counter this, I looked up the wicd and modified my wireless files so that it would start automatically whenever I rebooted. I then rebooted everything but nothing happend. I'm not sure if slackware comes with wicd in the package or not? I also tried lsmod again and the ieee80211_crypt_tkip and ls80211 were gone.

I'm guessing that I need to follow the blogger's next step which was along the lines of cp wl.ko /lib/modules/2.6.29/kernel/net/wireless/
and so on which all worked thankfully but I couldn't figure out where the /etc/modules file was so I could edit them to include:
ieee80211_crypt_tkip
wl

Anyway, sorry for the long winded post, you've been amazing at helping me get this fixed and I wanted to make sure I went into as much detail as possible. Cheers!

Hello DranoMax,

if you want to know if you've wicd installed use the pkgtools utility. If not, you'll find the wicd package in the extra-directory on the mirrors.
Be aware that it is not necessary to reboot the whole system in order to start or restart the network.

Markus

If you use modprobe wl.ko instead of insmod wl.ko, all of the module dependencies will be loaded, which should eliminate the need to load the ieee80211 stuff separately. Essentially, modprobe is a smarter version of insmod.

First off, if you look in the readme file that comes with the Broadcom driver, you'll find that the blogger you're citing simply copied those instructions. If you've copied wl.ko into the proper directory (and it looks as if you have), then try running depmod -a as root. That should update the system so that all of the dependencies for wl.ko are recognized and modprobe works properly. That should mean that all of the ieee modules get loaded when you modprobe wl. It also may mean that wl gets loaded at boot time. For what it is worth, I put all of the commands into a script that I run whenever I need to re-build wl.ko:

Slackware does come with wicd, but it isn't installed by default. Look in the /extra directory of your install disc and you'll find it. Just install it as you would any other Slackware package.

Actually after loading wl, have a look at iwconfig. If you don't see the card there, then something is wrong and have a look in your log files (/var/log/syslog, /var/log/messages and dmesg output) and see if there are any clues. If it shows up in iwconfig but not in ifconfig, try bringing it up with ifconfig wlan0 up.

Whew I was able to get wicd installed, thanks to both of you! There might be a little problem though, maybe not. A while ago when I was trying anything to get it to work, I followed a wiki that I can't seem to find again that had me set up wireless internet in a rs.... something file? I can't remember right now, but basically, I think I made eth1 my wireless internet connection instead of wlan0.

When I run ifconfig wlan0 up it doesn't do anthing, but when I run it as eth1, it starts right up and I can see my wireless connection in the terminal. When I run # iwlist wlan0 scan it can see all the wireless connections around me, which is very exciting!

In fact, I was just now, while writing this, able to connect to an unsecured network. It didn't show up in wicd, but I was able to type in its ssid and it WORKS!! Thank you guys so much! The last problem (I know it just keeps on coming) is that I can't connect to a secure network, even if I type in the ssid. Is this what that editing of wireless network files was earlier? Again, you guys are freaking amazing!

If it was instructions for Slackware, it was probably /etc/rc.d/rc.wireless.conf or perhaps rc.inet1.conf. If you're using wicd, you don't need to mess with either of those for your wireless connection. That said, when I use the wl driver, my wireless card also shows up as eth1, not wlan0. To be honest, the name the device uses is completely irrelevant. It should work the same whether it is called eth1 or wlan0.
I'm hoping you just have a typo here. If your wireless card is eth1, running iwlist wlan0 scan shouldn't do anything.

I'm guessing you're missing the bit in wicd where you enter the security keys. For each AP in the wicd client there is a Properties button. If you click on that for the AP you want, it will bring up a screen that allows you to set a bunch of parameters for that AP, including any encryption keys. What worries me a little here is that from your description, wicd isn't showing SSIDs. If the AP is set up to hide the SSID, that is OK, but if it is broadcasting it, there may be a problem.

Alright, I just wanted to follow up a little on what's happened. I installed the newest version of Wicd because I'd heard that it clears up the hidden networks problem nicely, and it did! I had to create a new group called 'users' and add myself to it, but EVERYTHING works perfectly now on that front, thanks in no small part to all of you who helped me. Thanks!

Um, uh, uhhhhhh, WHAT? The users group should have been part of the standard Slackware install. Have you been running as root the whole time?

Ha ha no, I haven't. It is very strange that it didn't show up. I do have and use a user account on it. I have no idea why it wasn't there.