I find that key problems hang at the Authenticating stage and don't get to the obtaining ip address stage. When it hangs at the ip address stage in my own experience it has been related to drivers.

Brian

Yes, that's right. If we can see the wicd log we might get some more clues.

It definitely could be driver-related: easiest way to test that theory is run an Archlinux Live CD (latest kernel) and see if you can connect to the network with it.

If you're not using X there's a python program called cnetworkmanager you might want to try http://vidner.net/martin/software/cnetworkmanager.

Sorry for the delay, the entire wicd log can be seen here. If more logs are needed, let me know. .
As the system initializes everything before login, there are a few messages that look suspicious but I don't know what log those are saved to.

Would I be able to initialize the broadcom driver within a live cd?

Can you check these things in wicd?

- Check that you have selected the correct Driver in the Advanced tab in preferences WPA/WPA2/WEXT.
- Shut down the wicd gui, and try to connect with wicd-curses.
- Check if there are any error messages from dmesg after running wicd. Post the output here.
- Install and run wireshark and make it listen on your wireless interface and post the output here.

hmmm.... if it is a driver issue, as a _last_ resort you may try the windows driver via ndiswrapper (if it works) and blacklist the kernel driver from loading. I know it sound ridiculous, but I had a laptop that worked better with the windows wireless driver.

I'll do this tomorrow and get back to you with the results.


I've tried ndiswrapper under debian, only allowed access to 2.4 Ghz range, and only on the 2.6 kernel.

You probably need a newer kernel and the latest firmware. Some of the earlier firmware has problems and the b43 driver included in 3.2 may be immature for that chipset. The best thing you can do at this stage is compile a 3.10.x and take it from there.

You haven't explained where you got the firmware from or how you installed it?

Or you can try the broadcom-sta driver first.

Got the driver from here. I just installed broadcom-sta from slackbuilds last night but it isn't showing up in lsmod. I tried modprobe wl and it kicked back this:
Not sure what this means exactly.

I've never had to do a manual kernel upgrade, where would I start with that?

The broadcom-sta/wl driver is a pain... I would suggest building a newer kernel and trying b43 first.

If you still want to press on with wl, this post may be useful: https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...ml#post4797896

If you followed the instructions in your link to wireless.kernel.org, you should have extracted the firmware to
The slackbuild may have been simpler (and cleaner): http://slackbuilds.org/repository/14.../b43-firmware/

To build a kernel: http://alien.slackbook.org/dokuwiki/...kernelbuilding

Get a 3.10.x kernel config from here: http://slackware.mirrors.tds.net/pub...rent/source/k/

Go for the 'generic' config for your architecture (if you use x86 - you will probably want the smp config). The only change you'll need to make is to build in your root file system (this avoids you having to create an initrd).

In order:

Yes it was extracted to /lib/firmware/b43 and it seems that I should just remove it from the system now that I'm trying to use broadcom-sta, but I can't seem to figure out how to uninstall the firmware...

That guide is for building the 2.6 kernel on 13.37, same procedure for building 3.10 on 14 I'm assuming?

My laptop isn't capable of smp (it's from 2003, so.. you get the idea). When I installed the current kernel, I had to use huge.s. Since I'm new to all this, I don't know if I should use config-huge-3.10.9 or config-generic-3.10.9?

You don't need to remove the firmware - and you can't uninstall it because of the method you used to install it. You could delete it, but I would strongly suggest just leaving it there.

You seem to be somewhat confused however, so I'll try to clarify:

If you're using broadcom-sta (wl) just use your existing kernel, don't compile a newer one and just follow the post I linked to, which deals with applying some patches to work around the error you were getting.

If you're going to stick with b43, you need the firmware (which you extracted from the broadcom-sta driver) and you will need a newer kernel (if you want a newer b43 module, you need a newer kernel because b43 is included in the kernel).

Yes, just adapt it to suit (make sure you substitute your kernel version string).

You may need the non smp kernel and you may not. smp itself is not an issue on single cores (I run an smp kernel on a single core Pentium 4), but if you have an old CPU which does not support NX bit, then you definitely will need the standard non smp x86 config.

Whether you use huge or generic is up to you. If you use generic, you will have to create an initrd, or just build your file system driver into the kernel. This is a matter of ticking a box when you run make xconfig (see the howto).

So, If I already installed broadcom-sta with sbopkg, I'm guessing that whole patching thing won't work.

I read through that and it mentions a few things with lilo, but I'm having an issue with that too. Lilo didn't install right when I installed slack, and I haven't been able to figure out how to reinstall/reconfigure it.

Remove, it patch it, build it again and install it again. Then try to insert the wl module again.
If lilo isn't installed correctly, then how are you booting?