Wireless Interface Not configured

Natron716 · 01-08-2009, 02:55 PM

Hi,

I just installed Debian linux on an old iBook G4. The installation went very smoothly, however I am having trouble getting the wireless up and running.

The wireless card is an airport extreme that uses some broadcom chipset supported by the bcm43xx driver.

When i type iwconfig into the terminal i get the following:

lo no wireless extensions
eth1 no wireless extensions
eth0 no wireless extensions
eth3 IEEE 802.11b/g ESSID:"" Nickname:"Broadcom 4306"
Mode: Managed Access Point: Invalid
RTS thr

ff Fragment thr

ff
bla bla bla(i am copying this off the screen of the other computer)

and my ifconfig brings this...

eth1 bla bla

lo bla bla

but no mention of my wireless adapter...

does anyone have any suggestions? Thanks!

farslayer · 01-08-2009, 03:42 PM

Start here.. http://wiki.debian.org/bcm43xx

I think you will find the firmware for the card is not installed and you will need to download and install it before anything works. The Firmware is proprietary so it is NOT in Debian by default.

Depending on whether you installed Etch, EtchnHalf, or Lenny the broadcom Driver used for that card will vary.

Could you post the output of hte following commands

uname -a

lsmod | grep b4

That way we can see what we are working with

bgeddy · 01-08-2009, 03:44 PM

ifconfig -a perhaps ?

Natron716 · 01-09-2009, 10:26 AM

I figured it out, thanks guys! The firmware was not installed, but I also needed to update my kernel so I could use the b43 drivers instead of the bcm43xx drivers. Now everything works great.

farslayer · 01-09-2009, 11:05 AM

Glad you were able to get it all figured out.

edubidu · 01-09-2009, 03:09 PM

Hi,

I have nearly the same problem, but it might not be the firmware.
I use

Ubuntu 8.04
Kernel 2.6.24-23-generic on i686
b43
rfkill_input,b43

AP's are seen with the roaming mode and with iwlist wlan0 scan.

lshw -C network outupt gives me
BCM4306 802.11b/g Wireless LAN Controller
vendor Broadcom
driver=b43-pci-bridge latency=64 module=ssb

/var/log/messages output is:
dhcbd: message_handler: message handler not found under /com/redhat/dhcp/wlan0 for sub-path wlan0.dbus.get.reason

I installed it with apt-get ...

---> This thing sees all WAP's, but doesn't connect neither a secured nor an insecured Wlan.

Somebody has an idea?

Thank you!!!

farslayer · 01-09-2009, 03:41 PM

Ubuntu is based off of Debian, have you checked if the Firmware is on your system ? I bet it isn't There by Default.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/Driver/b43

Quote:

The reason there are two is that b43 works with v4 broadcom firmware and b43-legacy works with the v3 firmware. New b43 driver still doesn't work without proprietary firmware, which isn't included in Ubuntu and must be downloaded separately, using b43-fwcutter package (from Ubuntu universe) or simply by installing b43-firmware package from http://ubuntu.cafuego.net (from Hardy distribution). New b43 driver doesn't work with old bcm43xx firmware.

edubidu · 01-13-2009, 03:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by farslayer

Ubuntu is based off of Debian, have you checked if the Firmware is on your system ? I bet it isn't There by Default.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/Driver/b43

hi,
I thought that this should be ok since the card is generally working. But I will check your suggestion. Feed-back comes...