broadom 4311 and broadom sta driver not working
 

so I was originally trying to set up my wireless using b43-fwcutter and the b43 driver from linuxwireless.org. I was not having much luck getting that to work however with my broadcom 4311 chip so I switched to using broadcom's driver which I found here.

http://www.broadcom.com/support/802.11/linux_sta.php

I removed b43 modules and added modules for this driver and installed it but I still can't figure out why I can't get a connection. Below I've included relevant console outputs that I think should be able to help some of you braniacs help me figure this out. :)

------EDIT 9:55 AM MST------

Below are some additional details I found. the first portion is relevant to my broadcom chip when running lspci -vn and the second part is just showing that I don't have any modules for ssb, even though my broadcom chip seems to be expecting one. I would say that is obviously a problem although I don't know how to change it..

try you might need to too

That snippet of what you posted strongly suggests (to me) that, despite your comment about removing the b43 modules, you have failed to do so. I'd suggest that you consider adding b43 and b43_phy to /etc/modules.d/blacklist-b43.conf or (since I don't use Slackware) wherever your system keeps it's module blacklists.

<edit>
It is, of course, possible that the driver you're trying to use is, in fact, a version of the b43
driver, and you just need to install the firmware specified in the message I quoted from your post.
</edit>

Looking at your prior thread, did you consider checking that the power to your wireless device was turned on? (On my laptop the wireless power switch is on the front of the case, and easily "tripped" by sliding the unit on my lap. I spent a couple of hours once trying to figure out what had gone wrong before I thought to check the switch position. In fact, :redface:, I booted Vista which popped a message that the power to the device was "off" before I thought to check.)

this is what i get when i type those commands

I wish that the only problem was that i need to hit the switch. :) that would be pretty nice.

in slackware it is /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf and i've done the following (even though it doesn't seem to be working since these modules seem to be loaded into the kernel anyways - or so thats what modprobe is telling me, right? )

You`ve been battling this for a while. If all else fails the ndiswrapper module and windows drivers will work. However, Im surprised the b43 didn`t work. You should really check the drivers at slackbuilds.org. Search for broadcom. I`m not sure but the drivers there could have modified install paths or something. The stuff there almost always works on slackware systems.

The slackbuilds site doesn`t list any dependencies for the broadcom-sta driver. Not even the firmware. So I doubt the ssb and b44 modules were needed. Are you using the huge kernel or generic?

lol not sure...i'm pretty sure the huge one..how can i tell?

in the readme for the broadcom sta driver it says i need to remove ssb, b43, all that cause it causes conflicts...thats why i added it to the blacklist and did rmmod on them

go to /boot directory
check to see what the vmlinuz symbolic link is to.
Chances are your using the huge kernel with just about everything compiled into it. You will not be able to remove or blacklist anything.
The b43 drivers will be in the kernel. You need to switch to the generic kernel
make an initrd
then use broadcom-sta driver

I just saw your old thread. The wpa supplicant is on the slackware disk in N so you may have it already.If you can you should disable security until you get connectivity. Then work on security. It makes troubleshooting easier. You might have already had the b43 driver working but the wpa issue didn`t allow connectivity.

this is what i get. why on earth can i not unload specific modules or blacklist anything? thats pretty annoying. lol

Hi,

Look at 'Slackware 13.0 RC2 X86_64 Broadcom bcm4312 problems' to possibly get some insight to help solve your 'STA' problems.

BTW, what's the output for 'ifconfig -a'? 'SSB' is necessary for the b44 driver if you plan to use the Ethernet.

:hattip:

...how do i disable security, what is the wpa issue, and how would it keep me from connecting? are you referring to the fact I couldn't set the key on the wlan0? somehow i managed to completely remove wlan0 as it doesn't come up at all when i enter
I was trying to work with the ndiswrapper but its saying I need to download the windows driver for my wireless card and extract it but its an exe file which is unextractable. lol

below is the output...and i don't really care about ethernet..i never hook up to ethernet..i'm always using wireless..

You should use a generic kernel if you have one in /boot.
You need to change your symbolic links for vmlinuz, syatem.map, and config to point to their generic files in /boot if they exist.
Then make an initrd. The /boot directory has an easy readme for this.
Don`t forget to doafter making the initrd.
It is easy to do.
When you use the huge kernels everything is in kernel. Generic kernel uses mostly loadable modules.
The huge kernel is a PITA when conflicts arise.
If you do want to stay with the huge kernel you probably only needed firmware for b43. The drivers were already in the kernel.

For ndiswrapper you will need to extract the files on a windows computer unless someone knows a better way.
Disabling security. I meant on your router. NO wep or wpa until you can get on the internet wireless. Then work on wpa/wep.
Have you tried iwconfig to set your essid again?
If you still have the firmware installed you could try removing the wl module.
Then do iwconfig to set your essid.
With the huge kernel the b43 drivers should already be loaded.
However I would still switch to generic kernel.

okay yeah i think thats a good idea to disable the security on the router...hopefully that will fix it temporarily

i do want to boot the generic kernel though...thats what i like about linux is that everything isn't preloaded in the kernel (or so i thought)

where should this file be at? I'm reading the readme and i've gotta install it but i can't seem to find it (hopefully just cause I'm looking in the wrong place)

below is the contents of my boot folder -which is where it seems like the kernel-generic file should be...

In /boot doDo this for System.map and config to make the symbolic links point to the generic files.
Then you will need to make an initrd.
The command for this depends on your filesystem. (ext3 reiser etc).
then add a line to /etc/lilo.conf under the .
after this don`t forget to or you will not be able to boot without your cd.

Actually, 'huge' is not as huge as you think. The only real differences between huge and generic are that huge has non-standard disk drives (RAID and such), as well as filesystem drivers. The huge kernel still uses modules for nearly everything.

I was under the impression that the huge kernel had almost every kernel driver built-in and the generic kernel had almost everything compiled as a module. I`ve always used the generic kernels because I know whats loaded, it makes me feel more in control of my system.
Starting with generic here seemed worth a shot. I actually thought he got this working in his old thread with the b43 firmware/cutter.

I use -generic as well, but the output of 'diff <(sort < config-generic-2.6.29.6) <(sort < config-huge-2.6.29.6)' is only 406 lines. Reading the output confirms that most things are installed modularly even for the -huge kernel.

To make initrd I need the kernel-generic files which I don't seem to have (whereis mkinitrd <version>.tgz returns nothing) ...any idea where I can download them?

Would this site work or do I need a specific mkinitrd file?

http://www.softlookup.com/download.asp?ID=39401

Thanks so much for everyone's help. Figuring out this wireless thing on linux is pretty freakin brutal (or so it seems) but I'm loving the challenge!

so looking at my kernel choices on the boot cd i used this is what i have...


hugesmp.s
speakup.s
huge.s


doesn't look like i have the generic option :( i'm going to burn a new disc with the generic and reinstall and try from the beginning...what would give me my best chances of getting this to work? the broadcom sta driver, or b43? correct me if i'm wrong here, but i only need to use b43-fwcutter if i'm using b43, right? (that sounds like a retarded question even saying it, but just wanted to check)

this is what i downloaded and burnt to disc...do i need to download something different to use the generic kernel?

http://www.slackware.com/getslack/torrents.php

hey does anyone know if this is a serious problem? I get it when i'm reinstalling and setup is installing packages

fresh install - current state of things
 

so i did a fresh install and this is where I'm at - haven't made any changes, installed any packages, or otherwise done anything but poke around with what you see below...it looks like you are right - b43 is already preloaded...meaning i shouldn't need to download b43-fwcutter either right?

my question would be what i need to modify so when i run iwlist wlan0 scan i actually see the wifi networks. that would be a great start. :) if I can get to the point where i can actually see the networks i'm minutes away from figuring out how to connect to them (or so i would like to hope :) )

Okay looks good, you have the correct *modules* loaded...and you get points for persisting...for this is the way of Slack...but you still need to install the *firmware* for your card before you can go any further...go here...

http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/b43

follow the instructions _exactly_ listed there for getting b43-fwcutter-012 and broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5.tar.bz2 installed...when you have that done report back for further assistance...you will be only a few simple steps away from slack wifi nirvana

Hi,

If you do a full install without exempting kernel options then the 'generic' kernel will be installed.

The listing of your '/boot' showed that you indeed had the generic kernels available.

'The Broadcom Firmware (tar.gz)' should be the same as the 'b43-fwcutter'.

I've used both the open and closed drivers to get a 'Broadcom 4312' working.

Don't forget to create a 'initrd'. Read the '/boot/README.initrd' to get some good helpful information.
:hattip:

That's correct: The exe file is, in fact, a ZIP file with a unzip pre-installed to automatically unpack it. You can usually just run unzip on the exe file to get its contents. Then you need to use the inf file as input to b43_fwcutter. Alternatively, you could go to the site listed in your dmesg output and get the input file from there.

is this a problem? You can see I'm running as root so...

It looks like it did create the b43-fwcutter-012 directory though so seems like everything is okay..just wanted to make sure that i get this right to a T :)

Rather coincidentally, I tried to get my wireless working on my laptop just last night. I'm posting the following in hopes that my success helps you. I've never manually setup the wireless on my laptop, and this worked really well for me. My initial mistake was to only read 'parts' of the guide in the URL below... so I initially messed with rc.wireless.conf.... but then I adjusted that back to default once I actually read through the guide properly.

My Laptop has a Broadcom BCM4311.

Initially, when I tried to use the card, the /var/log/messages told me to go get the b43 driver.

From slackbuilds.org, I obtained and installed b43-fwcutter and b43-firmware (in that order).

Using Alien BOB's guide here, I first modified just a few lines in rc.inet1.conf

Something like;(I could probably change this from [4] to [1], and comment out the other [1] lines... but my initial goal was to just get it working.)

I edited /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf (according to the Alien BOB's guide, which matched near perfectly). Worked great.

My KEY is really funky, and long. It contains all kinds of characters including quotes, slashes, etc, so I used wpa_passphrase to convert the string from funkystring to hex.
wpa_passphrase MyESSIDHere MyFunkyStringKeyHere
- of, which now I realize would have been better for me...
wpa_passphrase MyESSIDHere
(Then type or paste the funkystring in when it asks me to)

/etc/rc.d/rc.inet1 wlan0_stop # not even sure this was needed
/etc/rc.d/rc.inet1 wlan0_start # gave me a minor error about setting a "nickname" I think, but anyway...
ifconfig # Shows that I got a 192.168.* ip from my crappy wireless router.

The laptop could then ping the router and other machines in my LAN.

holy crap! its freakin picking up some wifi man!! this is awesome. that just made my day. i can't tell you how siked i am. i'm at work though and the network i want to connect to isn't broadcasting...how do i connect to a non broadcasting essid? i also have an ethernet cable here...how do i connect with that? I've tried the following to no avail

looking at my ethernet cord there is a green solid light and a blinking yellow light...any thoughts anyone?

thanks so much everyone for your help...you are all awesome! i'm one step closer to being a true slacker lol :)

Congratulations!will list access points but I don`t know about hidden essid`s. You might be able to connect by mac address.
As for ethernet you probably only need to To get an ip address.
As for generic kernel, sorry I didn`t explain it better. You already had everything you needed. You just need to change the symbolic links in /boot to point to the *generic* ones instead of *huge*. The initrd is necessary for generic kernel.
This example is from the README.initrd
in /boot This assumes a root on /dev/hdb3 (which yours probably isn`t) and it assumes your using ext3 filesystem (which you might be).
The example also has a different kernel version than what you have.
will display your kernel version.
Once successful with mkinitrd you will have initrd-tree and initrd.gz in your /boot directory.
Then in /etc/lilo.conf you will need to add a line like Don`t forget to when finished with editing /etc/lilo.conf.
Of course this might be just a GIANT pain after getting wifi working!

progress is good yes...to keep things easier for you for now, get and install wicd which you will find in /extra on any slack mirror...it's a pretty slick little app that makes a simple job, even simpler

if you have made any changes to /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf , comment them out and return it to its original state, then reboot...when you start up kde or whatever, you'll have a wicd icon in your panel, click on it and it will identify all wireless networks within range...you will need to know the encryption keys to access the networks unless they are open WEP nodes...if you've got your ethernet cable in, wicd will id that network as well and you will need to put in the appropriate info to connect to that as well...but obviously you don't need both at the same time yes?

there really are only 3 files you need to know how to edit to do wifi manually with slack, but often you get conflicting and sometimes irrelevant info when you ask for help...after you've got your machine connected, do some reading about

/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
/etc/rc.d/rc.wireless.conf
/etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf

so you'll know what wicd is doing for you and then

man wpa_passphrase

so i'm not exactly sure what i'm doing wrong...i'm trying to connect to a network with a wpa2 passphrase and when i try to do so through wicd it says its validating authentication (at the bottom of the gui) and then it says its obtaining an IP address but that it fails to obtain an ip address...any ideas what I need to do differently? i've tried to connect by getting a key via wpa_passphrase and then setting the key via iwconfig but it tells me invalid arguments...

sorry i can provide what i'm typing in the console if you need..i'm just in the middle of trying to catch a bus :)

This looks like you're trying to extract the tar file to a directory called "2nd Install" on the media/disk drive. I suspect that /media/disk/2nd Install may be a CD or DVD that you've mounted "read only," which would make it difficult to write to the disk. It could be a USB drive, but, again, it may be mounted ro.

In any case, try creating some directory on your hard drive (mkdir ...) and use cd to change your working directory to that new one. Then try the tar command again.

<edit>
And, after I looked at the rest of your thread following the message I quoted, since you seem to have things now working, you can probably disregard this as irrelevant.
</edit>

i do have things working...as long as the network is open and doesn't require a passkey/passphrase. I'm going to try to connect to a network that requires a wpa2 key tonight and see if I can figure it out...it kept telling me "unable to obtain ip address" when i was trying yesterday.

you need to look at /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf. I don`t think iwconfig supports passphrase without wpa_supplicant but I`m not sure.

yeah that will happen if you don't know the passphrase for the network you're trying to connect to...it's a security thing yes?

but it does sound like you're getting somewhere...have you tried to connect to your own wireless network yet?

so when trying to run wpa_supplicant this is what i get...i think the general gist is it can't find an access point...how do i rectify this? lol :)

In /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf did you put your_64_char_psk where it said to?
To get the 64_char_psk you could doAlso you should have a gui program called wpa_gui. If you can`t find it just type wpa_gui in a terminal.

okay, _you_ don't run wpa_supplicant, it is a program that gets called by another program...wpa_supplicant has a configuration file called /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf...into which you would copy the results of doing
foo@foo$wpa_passphrase <your ESSID> <your_clever_encryption_keywords>

but only if you were configuring your wifi manually

since you're using wicd, you don't need to do that...in order to attach to a WPA/WPA2 encrypted wireless network, you need to know the encryption key for that network and enter it in the appropriate field when you click the <properties> button on the wicd gui...ergo...if you don't have the key, it must not be your door

I think you're mistaking wpa_supplicant for some other kind of program

ahh..that makes sense...hence why it's called a daemon program. So my question is do I have to use the wicd gui? I would prefer to do everything from a command prompt. I haven't been able to figure out how to connect to even an open network through a command prompt though. I mean I can always set the essid for the wlan0 but that doesn't connect me.

So I guess now that I think about it, I'm not sure I really understand exactly what you mean when you say I'm not supposed to run wpa_supplicant directly. Looking at the man page it looks like thats what I'm supposed to be able to do. Or is the wicd program calling wpa_supplicant, thereby causing problems when i try to call it?

in order of your asking, no you don't have to use wicd, but if you're just learning about wifi configuration it makes life simpler...if you want to learn to configure manually, stick with one network -preferably yours- and learn how to do that first...obviously everything can be done from the cli but it sounds like you're trying to access different wifi networks and that sounds like it's a bit beyond your level of knowledge at this point...

you're right, you as a user don't run wpa_supplicant, wicd is running the scripts for you and you're doing nothing but creating error messages when you try to run it manually...

Assuming you're using wlan0... (I think this is taken from the appropriate IFNAME[x] in rc.inet1.conf)

/etc/rc.d/rc.inet1 wlan0_stop
/etc/rc.d/rc.inet1 wlan0_start

working with WPA, wext, and wpa_supplicant
 

So I'm trying to figure out what I've configured wrong with my wireless...I need to set up a WPA but it won't connect...below is the output of my rc.inet1.conf and wpa_supplicant.conf and the output of /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf wlan0_restart...

First the stuff pertaining to wlan0 in rc.inet1.conf...

This is everything in wpa_supplicant.conf

when i run /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf wlan0_[restart, stop, start] I get absolutely nothing...any help is greatly appreciated...:)

---------------------------EDIT---------------------------------------

I forgot to say I can connect fine to networks that don't require a password...but i can't connect to networks that do

---------------------------EDIT---------------------------------------

looks like you're making lots of progress

1. you have uncommented lines you don't need to use in /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf
comment these lines back again
WLAN_MODE[4]=Managed
WLAN_KEY[4]="bd9...
WLAN_IWPRIV[4]="set...
WPAPSK=96...
WLAN_WPAWAIT[4]=30....

2. did you name your machine "darkstar" when you installed Slack? If not, comment this out in inet1.conf
DHCP_HOSTNAME[4]="darkstar"

3. ssid="Katies Corner"

Linux/Unix doesn't like white spaces...it reads a white space as an end of a line...I would type the essid as Katies_Corner, and you would need to make that change in the configuration of your router as well.

4. psk="bd9...c46" from wpa_supplicant.conf

no quote signs required, just the number from wpa_passphrase

5. when done do
/etc/rc.d/rc.inet1 wlan0 restart NOT /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf restart

okay sweet thank you :) I will see if it works tonight. What if I have multiple networks I might be connecting to that have different essid's and different pass phrases? Do I just have a separate network code block in wpa_supplicant.conf? I'm guessing I would then just need to restart the interface if I change networks...

I don't think so. Since you seem to want to work manually, you're going to have to learn to use the iwconfig command to connect to different networks. And if you change the settings for your card to connect another place, you'll need to do it again manually when you get home. I saw a script called rc.inet1.smart a while back that looked like interesting but never putzed with it.

wicd is really the tool for connecting to different networks if you do that frequently. I use it. easy-peasy