Setting up Broadcom wireless networking under Slackware 12.1 (new bcmwl6.inf driver)

Dj.r4iDeN · 10-08-2008, 01:22 PM

Setting up Broadcom wireless networking under Slackware 12.1 (new bcmwl6.inf driver)

ok
a lot of people having hard time to setup this driver.I was one of them.
It takes me like 8 hours searching in google ,and reading other people feedback and answers

and the funny part here , i downloaded the driver from dell , and my computer is HP
it didn't work when I tried HP driver

so

before you start
I want to give you some notes
1st
this tutorial work if your lspci output Is
04:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4310 USB Controller (rev 01)

2nd
I did that in slackware 12.1 32 bit kernel ,not 64 bit

3rd
I read Pappy McFae document , and this version is new of his topic

4th
maybe you have other built in driver , you will need to add them to the blacklist

5th
I will explain how to use WPA in wireless networking , because its much better in security
and much easier
ok lets start

1st

clean your system if you have old ndiswrapper
if not skip to 2nd part

remove any loaded modules
root@nyc:~# rmmod ndiswrapper

remove any loaded driver
root@nyc:~# ndiswrapper -r `ndiswrapper -l |grep installed | awk '{print $1}'`

2nd

blacklist kernel builtin driver to make sure nothing gonna conflict with your new driver

root@nyc:~# echo 'blacklist bcm43xx' >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

you must reboot if you have any driver builtin into your kernel

if not

go ahead

download ndiswrapper from http://sourceforge.net/projects/ndiswrapper/

I like to make new directory to make my system neat

root@nyc:~# mkdir wifi

root@nyc:~# cd wifi/

now download the ndiswrapper

root@nyc:~/wifi# wget http://voxel.dl.sourceforge.net/sour...swrapper/ndisw

rapper-1.53.tar.gz

3rd

untar and install

root@nyc:~/wifi# tar xzvf ndiswrapper-1.53.tar.gz
root@nyc:~/wifi# cd ndiswrapper-1.53

installing
root@nyc:~/wifi/ndiswrapper-1.53# make uninstall
root@nyc:~/wifi/ndiswrapper-1.53# make distclean

maybe you will get error massage here if you haven't installed before ndiswrapper before
so don't panic

root@nyc:~/wifi/ndiswrapper-1.53# make

to compile it

root@nyc:~/wifi/ndiswrapper-1.53# make install
to install it in your system

now you need to get the right driver to make it work

YOU CANNOT USE WINDOWS VISTA DRIVER
YOU CANNOT USE 64BIT DRIVER IN Linux 32 bit KERNEL DRIVER
YOU CANNOT USE OLD bcmwl5 FILES TO MAKE IT WORK
and this topic for people who have lspci out = 04:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4310 USB Controller (rev 01)

ok

where I can get the driver ?

you can download it from here (90 MB)
http://support.dell.com/support/down...&fileid=236819

and extract it in any windows box
and use folder called DRIVER
or
use my uploaded version
I uploaded for you to make it easier for the people who don't have high speed Internet

(1.2 MB)
root@nyc:~/wifi# wget http://dj.r4iden.googlepages.com/driver.tar.gz

root@nyc:~/wifi# tar xzvf driver.tar.gz

root@nyc:~/wifi# cd driver
root@nyc:~/wifi/driver# ls
bcm43xx.cat bcm43xx64.cat bcmwl5.inf bcmwl5.sys bcmwl564.sys

now lets use this windows driver

root@nyc:~/wifi/driver# ndiswrapper -i bcmwl5.inf
installing bcmwl5 ...

if you got any error in this part that mean this driver not gonna work with your wireless card

now enter this commend
root@nyc:~/wifi/driver# ndiswrapper -l
the output must be like that

bcmwl5 : driver installed
device (14E4:4315) present

if you got output like that only

bcmwl5 : driver installed

that mean something wrong with the driver , and cannot continue installing this driver

type

root@nyc:~/wifi/driver# ndiswrapper -m

don't worry if you got error massage here nothing panic

then type next commands

root@nyc:~/wifi/driver# ndiswrapper -ma

root@nyc:~/wifi/driver# ndiswrapper -mi

root@nyc:~/wifi/driver# modprobe ndiswrapper

root@nyc:~/wifi/driver# echo ndiswrapper >> /etc/modules

root@nyc:~/wifi/driver# depmod -a

this commend to make sure the modules work are installed and set up properly.

ok

now you must reboot

ok WB xD

now to make sure every thing is ok type dmesg |grep ndis

root@nyc:/home/raiden/ndiswrapper-1.53# dmesg |grep ndis

ndiswrapper version 1.53 loaded (smp=yes, preempt=no)

ndiswrapper: driver bcmwl5 (Broadcom,09/20/2007, 4.170.25.12) loaded

ndiswrapper: using IRQ 20

usbcore: registered new interface driver ndiswrapper

ndiswrapper: changing interface name from 'wlan0' to 'eth1'

if you have seen something like that

that mean every thing is ok

if not

that mean you need to retry again

ok

lets go ahead

now our driver is already installed , we need to connect to the Internet using WPA encryption

Pappy McFae topic was very complex about this part

dont worry im gonna show you how to do it with in 1 min

my wireless interface is eth1

you can check yours by this commend

ifconfig

I think you will know which one is wireless and which not

slackware 12.1 comes with all wireless tools you need

so lets go on

1st

you have to scan your network first

root@nyc:~# iwlist eth1 scan

Cell 05 - Address: 00:12:0E:55:26:26

ESSID:"raiden"

Protocol:IEEE 802.11g

Mode:Managed

Frequency:2.437 GHz (Channel 6)

Quality:71/100 Signal level:-50 dBm Noise level:-96 dBm

Encryption key

n

Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s; 6 Mb/s

9 Mb/s; 12 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s; 24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s

48 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s

Extra:bcn_int=200

Extra:atim=0

IE: WPA Version 1

Group Cipher : TKIP

Pairwise Ciphers (1) : TKIP

Authentication Suites (1) : PSK

ok

network name = raiden

mode = Managed

Channel = 6

security = WPA

note:boot commands start here

we need to to use WPA security modules to make sure our encryption work

root@nyc:~# modprobe ieee80211_crypt_tkip

now we need to config wpa_supplicant

root@nyc:~# ifconfig eth1 0.0.0.0 up

root@nyc:~# killall wpa_supplicant

use it if you run wpa_supplicant before

root@nyc:~# wpa_passphrase raiden 'linux rock' > /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf

raiden is my network essid name

I used ' ' because I have space in my password

linux rock is my network wpa key

root@nyc:~# iwconfig eth1 mode Managed

root@nyc:~# iwconfig eth1 essid raiden

change raiden to any other network name

root@nyc:~# iwconfig eth1 channel 6

change number 6 to any other network number

channel 6 is my network channel

root@nyc:~# wpa_supplicant -i eth1 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -d -D wext&

rock it baby

now we need to get ip address

my IP address : 192.168.1.200

subnet mask :255.255.255.0

gateway :192.168.1.1

dns : 192.168.1.1

now lets get our ip address

root@nyc:~# ifconfig eth1 0.0.0.0 up

root@nyc:~# ifconfig eth1 192.168.1.200 netmask 255.255.255.0

root@nyc:~# route add default gw 192.168.1.1

add your gateway

root@nyc:~# echo 'nameserver 192.168.1.1' >/etc/resolv.conf

that if you want to delete the old dns

if not

use echo like that

root@nyc:~# echo 'nameserver 192.168.1.1' >> /etc/resolv.conf

make sure you have '>>'

if you want to get your ip via DHCP use the next commend

root@nyc:~# dhcpcd eth1 up

now if you want to get ipaddress when your computer boot

add

dhcpcd eth1 up

to

/etc/rc.d/rc.local

and chmod it

chmod +x

for static ip

use static commend s in rc.local and chmod it

just open it with any editor and add your commands

if you want to rewrite it its ok

it doesn't matter if my name was in the document or not

ok

have nice day guys xD

nemesis89 · 09-14-2009, 03:28 PM

I'm tested this tutorial on 64bit slackware 13.0 on my notebook hp dv5 1132es and it works without any problems. I'm only test drivers from author's link.

business_kid · 09-20-2009, 04:54 PM

@Dj.r4iDeN

Maybe next time we could have less white space, please. Too many <return><return><return>s

rad01 · 09-20-2009, 09:11 PM

Applied bits of this to problems I've been having getting my Belkin (Broadcom) wireless card working with Slackware 12.2 and had success - thank you!