Broadcom bcm43xx (also dell 1390) wifi device

Garda · 02-21-2007, 10:04 AM

AMD Turion64X2, debian etch, snapshot from the 15th of Jan

the kernel version is

Code:

#cat /proc/version
Linux version 2.6.18-3-amd64 (Debian 2.6.18-7) (waldi@debian.org) (gcc version 4.1.2 20061115 (prerelease) (Debian 4.1.1-20)) #1 SMP Mon Dec 4 17:04:37 CET 2006

my WLAN device is

Code:

#lspci |grep -i broadcom
01:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation Dell Wireless 1390 WLAN Mini-PCI Card (rev 01)

i downloaded the firmware cutter package for the wifi card's necessary firmware
bcm43xx-fwcutter_005-2_amd64.deb
my kernel already had the bcm43xx module, it needed the proprietary firmware which this tool extracts

i ran it and it put all of the firmware in a directory
/lib/firmware

i copied this over to
/lib/hotplug/firmware

then ran

Code:

modprobe bcm43xx

i can confirm that the module is running

Code:

lsmod |grep bcm
bcm43xx               426112  0 
firmware_class         15616  1 bcm43xx
ieee80211softmac       34304  1 bcm43xx
ieee80211              36680  2 bcm43xx,ieee80211softmac

however, still no joy with the wireless device
it's not being recognised by any of the wifi software

any help?

angryfirelord · 02-21-2007, 02:18 PM

Probably because it doesn't have an IP address yet. Type ifconfig & determine which one is your wifi device (ex mine is ath0). Then do a dhclient on it. (ex. dhclient ath0)

Garda · 02-21-2007, 06:45 PM

that's the problem
ifconfig -a
doesn't show any wifi device

EDIT:
i thought it might be useful to add my output from ifconfig

Code:

eth0      Link encap:UNSPEC  HWaddr  
          BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)

eth1      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
          Interrupt:225 Base address:0x6000 

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:8 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:8 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:560 (560.0 b)  TX bytes:560 (560.0 b)

sit0      Link encap:IPv6-in-IPv4  
          NOARP  MTU:1480  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)

angryfirelord · 02-22-2007, 06:40 AM

Hmm, it could be eth1.