Broadcom b43 driver - appears in lsmod, can't find interface
 

I'm trying to get my Linksys WMP11 (Broadcom BCM4306/3, PCI ID 4e4:4320) wireless adapter up. I have no internet access on that machine and it's in the basement, so posting dmesg, etc. would be a problem (a lot of up and down stairs for me today).


I followed the steps at http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Dr...e_installation
for a manual install of fw-cutter and the 2.6.24 b43 kernel firmware version.

I can lsmod and see b43 running. I run dmesg and ssb sees a bunch of cores - no apparent errors. There is no mention of b43 in dmesg (or /var/log/syslog & messages)

However, iwconfig only sees eth0 (which is not connected) and lo.
Any attempt with iwconfig eth1 or wlan, or ifconfig eth1/wlan0 up gives me a "no such device" error.

Any suggestions would be wonderful - even a narrowing of possible problem areas (driver, firmware, etc...)

Try "sudo /sbin/update-pciids" to update your manufacturer device codes.

Also could you post the output of "sudo /sbin/modinfo b43". I'm interested in the options.

Also, are you certain about your kernel version? I thought that the b43 module is in 2.6.25 and newer kernels.

Check for a physical switch disabling wireless. Also a FN key which disables/enables wireless.

Quick way to check that there isn't a firmware error is to do
Also check
and see if that returns anything.

What distribution are you running?

Well....

Without an internet connection, I downloaded http://pciids.sourceforge.net/v2.2/pci.ids.bz2
and (ran downstairs and) dumped it into /usr/share/misc. Rebooted. No change. (Please let me know if I'm doing it wrong.)

No physical switch, no love from the function keys.

Here's some results from the suggested commands:

Kernel Version:
I'm running Ubuntu Hardy Heron. According to http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Dr...e_installation
b43 runs with 2.6.24, with older firmware.

Here's what I get from dmesg:

I'm almost certain this is my Hauppage Win-PVR card, and isn't related to wireless.

Any solutions/ideas/guesses?

Please, do:
modprobe -r b43
modprobe b43
dmesg | tail -n 30

Post the output please.

Note that 2+ rounds of removing and re-adding the b43 module are captured here.
As I was tinkering, the add & remove starting with the [24580.493899] timestamp was an experimental try with the 2.6.25+ "newer" firmware (the b43 driver from linux-2.6.25 or newer - according to linuxwireless.org). So as to get a clean result in response to nimnull22's post, I switched back to the 2.6.24 firmware and re-cycled the b43 module (starting at timestamp [24659.152053]).

The outputs on both tries are identical - does this mean I can narrow it down to a firmware problem?

Also, supposing the b43 module and the firmware were working properly, what would I expect to see? Would I just be able to "modprobe b43" and then the interface would pop up on "iwconfig"? Or is there another step in there?

Thank you all for helping me work on this.

I have to ask you to do some searches.
Look in /var/log for any files which contain "Broadcom B43 wireless driver" or just "Broadcom" or b43.
Because "dmesg" showed nothing.

And please post output of: "ifconfig -a"

Thanks

Generally, that's the case. Make sure all the necessary modules are being loaded (b43 has several, iirc) and check if it is recognized with ifconfig -a.

As requested:

I then ran:

And got nothing but auth.log entries, which I believe are just my sudo commands. (those grep lines would have found something if it was there, right?)

And there are a bunch of other modules loading:

Type it on root console "grep -i broadcom /var/log/*".
Also search for b43: "grep -i b43 /var/log/*"

Hi guys, what do you have in /lib/firmware? There should be a b43 directory there that contains the firmware that the b43 module uses. I just need a list of the 4 file names therein to see which version you have - perhaps you already know if you have downloaded b43-fwcutter.

I ran the grep searched in a root console - no change, just auth.log sudo entires.

When I ran the firmware directories, I came across another possible problem, and created another problem myself...

Here's the directory listing for 2.6.24 firmware:

Here's after my switch to the 2.6.25+ firmware:

However, in both fw-cutter firmware installs the "/lib/firmware/b43" directory permission is set so that only root can read (or execute) it. Does the b43 module run as root? Could this be a source of the problem?

Also, when I was clearing /lib/firmware/b43 for re-install of firmware, I ran the following:

And accidentally zapped my whole firmware directory. I re-ran fw-cutter to put the b43 stuff back, but did I lose anything important in the other directories?

No luck on changing permissions.

Any other ideas, guesses, or even likely places to look?

a) I am wondering why you have a prompt address, viz. /usr/src/broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5/driver which leads me to believe that you have the wl (also known as STA) driver installed alongside the b43 driver? Do a quick 'lsmod | grep wl' to determine if the wl module is loaded.

b) What kernel version are you using? A quick 'uname -r' will give you the answer I need. I am expecting something like 2.6.31 which is buggy with respect to the broadcom drivers, and

c) Are you using encryption on your wireless? Have you tried 'open' mode i.e. unencrypted - you will have to change the settings on your router access point - is this possible?

lsmod | grep wl returned nothing.

uname -r returned 2.6.24-26-generic

I figured if I can't even bring up the wireless interface, the encryption settings of the router wouldn't matter. If I'm wrong, let me know and I'll try.