broadcom 4306 ndiswrapper install

hellstrom · 04-06-2007, 03:51 PM

please help me to install broadcom 4306 with ndiswrapper on a xbuntu xfce machine. Where to beginn. I have followed some wiki/how to but I got error every time

Hangdog42 · 04-06-2007, 04:23 PM

Why don't you post the errors you're getting. Otherwise we're shooting in the dark.

hellstrom · 04-07-2007, 01:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hangdog42

Why don't you post the errors you're getting. Otherwise we're shooting in the dark.

sorry for the text yesterday, I got some panic. Have followed a swedish wiki and think it working now.But can I test if I have done right, have no router?

iwconfig

lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

eth1 IEEE 802.11b/g ESSID

ff/any Nickname:"Broadcom 4306"
Mode:Managed Access Point: Invalid Bit Rate=1 Mb/s
RTS thr

ff Fragment thr

ff
Encryption key

ff
Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

sit0 no wireless extensions.

Hangdog42 · 04-07-2007, 07:29 AM

OK, the eth1 is making me a bit suspicious you're not using ndiswrapper. Let me explain....

There are two drivers currently available for Broadcom chipsets. There is the bcm43xx driver, which is a native Linux driver, and is part of most current Linux distributions. I'm betting xbuntu comes with this. The second driver is ndiswrapper, which as you've seen, allows a Windows driver to function in Linux.

The reason this is important is that bcm43xx and ndiswrapper will interfere with each other if they are loaded at the same time. The other issue is that bcm43xx requires you to install firmware, and that is almost certainly NOT part of xbuntu.

So you need to make a basic decision, namely which driver do you want to use? You can have both installed on your computer, but you can only use one at a time. The 4306 chipset works fairly well with bcm43xx but it is limited to 802.11b speeds. If you need faster speed, use ndiswrapper. If you decide to use bcm43xx, visit my help site where I've got instructions on how to create and install the firmware it requires.

The way to check is to open a console and run lsmod. That will show you what kernel modules are loaded. If you see both ndiswrapper and bcm43xx in that list, you'll need to remove one of them with the modprobe command. So if you go with ndiswrapper, you would do something like this:

modprobe -r bcm43xx
modprobe ndiswrapper

If you then run iwconfig, you'll probably see a wlan0, which is the interface that ndiswrapper usually (but not always) creates.

hellstrom · 04-07-2007, 02:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hangdog42

OK, the eth1 is making me a bit suspicious you're not using ndiswrapper. Let me explain....

There are two drivers currently available for Broadcom chipsets. There is the bcm43xx driver, which is a native Linux driver, and is part of most current Linux distributions. I'm betting xbuntu comes with this. The second driver is ndiswrapper, which as you've seen, allows a Windows driver to function in Linux.

The reason this is important is that bcm43xx and ndiswrapper will interfere with each other if they are loaded at the same time. The other issue is that bcm43xx requires you to install firmware, and that is almost certainly NOT part of xbuntu.

So you need to make a basic decision, namely which driver do you want to use? You can have both installed on your computer, but you can only use one at a time. http://linuxquestions.cachefly.net/i...adscratch1.gif The 4306 chipset works fairly well with bcm43xx but it is limited to 802.11b speeds. If you need faster speed, use ndiswrapper. If you decide to use bcm43xx, visit my help site where I've got instructions on how to create and install the firmware it requires.

The way to check is to open a console and run lsmod. That will show you what kernel modules are loaded. If you see both ndiswrapper and bcm43xx in that list, you'll need to remove one of them with the modprobe command. So if you go with ndiswrapper, you would do something like this:

modprobe -r bcm43xx
modprobe ndiswrapper

If you then run iwconfig, you'll probably see a wlan0, which is the interface that ndiswrapper usually (but not always) creates.

I love all the time hangdog42 you have give me. Thanks!!
I have a line network at home, but if i want to take my computer to school.
so i want to choose between wlan and lan.

so what must i do to get my wlan working.

sorry if I dont understand how to, computer is hard. maybe i should move this to the newbie forum

Hangdog42 · 04-07-2007, 03:44 PM

Quote:

I have a line network at home, but if i want to take my computer to school.
so i want to choose between wlan and lan.

so what must i do to get my wlan working.

Lets focus on getting ndiswrapper to work for now. It is a touch more reliable than bcm43xx.

The first thing to do is to blacklist the bcm43xx module. That keeps it from being loaded and interfering with ndiswrapper. Edit your /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist file and add the line blacklist bcm43xx to the file. If you reboot, that should keep bcm43xx from loading. Check the output from lsmod and make sure that bcm43xx is not there.

If you haven't already, install ndiswrapper. Be sure to visit their wiki as it has the best install instructions. Once you've got ndiswrapper and the Windows driver installed, load ndiswrapper with modprobe ndiswrapper. That should make your card visible to the iwconfig command. If you have trouble, post any errors you're getting. If it works, you can use iwconfig to configure your card or use whatever GUI monstrosity Xbuntu has.