My LAN adapter kicked so I've finally decided to go wireless on my Slackware 12 box.

I have a Belkin F5D7001. Some googling indicates it runs on a Broadcom chipset and should be compatible with the native bcm43xx module.

I have downloaded both the b43 firmware cutter, and ndiswrapper.

Any thoughts on which way I should go and any common pratfalls with either one?

Are there any straight forward tutorials out there?

I was only able to get my Broadcom adapter working reliably after I downloaded the latest source from kernel.org and built a custom kernel. I used two different stock Ubuntu kernels, but my wireless connection was never stable enough for constant use.

thanks for the reply ...we'll see if a kernel upgrade becomes necessary. In the meantime maybe you can help me with my latest blunder.

I snagged a copy of wl_apsta.o from http://downloads.openwrt.org/sources.

The files the cutter removed only a b43legacy directory, but the files seemed to correspond to what the kernel module was looking for so, against my better judgement, I starting renaming them and copying them into my firmware directory.

when I renamed a0g0bsinitvals5.fw to /lib/firmware/bcm43xx_initval05.fw.

Now when rc.inet1 runs my kernel crashes and I can't even get my shell!

How can I get into my system to stop rc.inet1 from running on boot so I can fix the problem?

If your kernel uses bcm43xx, use bcm43xx_fwcutter, or if it uses b43 module, use b43_fwcutter. They're two different things, which you probably knew already, and you should be using b43 these days. I didn't have problems with it, with a 4318 chipset wireless card, and since b43 is native kernel module whereas ndiswrapper's Windows drivers aren't, I suggest using b43. The fwcutter should give you the correct files without renaming, so if you need to rename them, maybe something isn't right..make sure the driver file you're cutting is right and that the module/fwcutter match each other.

Then again, if you can't figure it out, do use ndiswrapper. Just remember to blacklist bcm43xx/b43 modules if you use it so they won't interfere..

Do you have a rescue disk you can boot from? You can always download System Rescue CD and boot from that. A lot of people also use the Knoppix Live CD, but System Rescue CD is only a 234 MB download. The Knoppix Live CD is over 640 MB.

thanks for the responses!

Wow what at idiot I am. I used to think I was pretty good with a linux box until I took this on.

b0uncer - you are right I downloaded the wrong version of the cutter. Pulling from the same file with bcm43xx-fwcutter pulled all the correct filenames.

David1357 - one I got into single user mode properly I was able to clear out that bad firmware. At first I was kicked into a read only single user mode as a result of the cold boots and I panicked.

I got pretty far with ndiswrapper. I blacklisted bcm43xx and my iwconfig recognizes wlan0. But it still does not connect and there is very little error logging to trouble shoot with. At least with bcm43xx I was getting kernel messages indicating it was calling the wpa_supplicant.

I'm now going to blacklist ndiswrapper and try with bcm43xx again now that I have the right firmware.

thanks again.

well...i'm online.

i changed my blacklist from bcm43xx to ndsrwrapper, but it didn't make any difference. The config files still list ndiswrapper as the driver and there is no conflict yet.

The main problem i was having was an inability to connect to my WPA. I turned off the encryption and deferenced the wpa_supplicant and now I'm flying.

Maybe I'll fight the wpa battle another time, but no time soon.

thanks again...

Use this init script to get your WPA working.

The instructions are for Ubuntu. I know nothing Slackware, especially how to write init scripts for it. If you get it working, please post your modified version here for others to learn from.