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How to set up Broadcom 802.11b/g wireless

Hey folks, I'm new to this forum, Linux and wireless in generl, so I have a lot of questions!

I'm not a techie by trade, so go easy with the lingo. :)

I decided to setup a dual boot Winblows/Fedora core 4 system on my HP Pavilion dv8113cl Notebook. I've got it all installed, but I'm not sure how to configure the wireless. It's a Broadcom 802.11b/g wlan. It works fine in winblows, but Linu is not automaticaly setting it up. I know absolutely nothing about Linux, I was hoping someone could point me to a step by step tutorial. As stated above, I'm not a techie, if I had to configure it in windows I wouldn't have a clue what to do. But if I had step by step instructions I'd be fine.
TIA!

I hate to have to inform you of this. You will need to use ndiswrapper for that.
http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/m....php/Main_Page
The good news is you will be a semi-techie when you get it working.
Good Luck and have fun in the process.

Thanks Comprookie2000, I checked the list and my wireless is not on it. Hopefully it will work out.

Look at lspci, do you see Card: Broadcom BCM4306 802.11b/g Wireless LAN Controller
or
Card: Broadcom Corporation BCM4318 [AirForce One 54g] 802.11g Wireless LAN Controller I think that is yours.

It took me a while, but here is what I got. I logged in as root, then chose "terminal" from the gui:
From the terminal I typed lspci and it showed,

06:02.0 Network Controller: Broadcom Corporation: Unknown Device 4318 (rev 02)

Is that the same card as what you were thinking? I also saw the realtek network card so I guess the above is the wireless?

I also was wondering what is the etiquite here for posting additional questions? Should I start another thread or keep it all on this one?
Thanks for the help!:D

Im trying to set up the same card as you, so as soon as i will figure it out i shall tell you everything. As far as i managed was to load propper modules, but i found out that i cannot set essid, so probably my card is off, and i do not know how to turn it on (no option i bios). You may try to get ndiswrapper from ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net. Read my post "TravelMate 4401LMi - WiFi problem". (linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?t=408128)

Try lspci -v it should provide additional information

OK, i managed to set that card with my TravelMate 4401LMi so lets start. In my case it was about turning the card on by pressing the led-button, but linux does not knot what should it do with such a button. I installed acer_acpi module, and was able to go online as i am know. You might not have to push any button to activate your wifi, but if you have to we shall experiment.

First we need to install the drivers. Broadcom drivers for linux are under development and i do not know how to use them now. (bcm43xx.berlios.de)
I use ndiswrapper and winXP drivers instead.

Get ndiswrapper from ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net
I understand that you have not compiled kernel on your own. Install krenel-headers from FedoraCD, we will need them to compile ndiswrapper.

now unpack and compile ndis:

Code:

tar -zxvf ndsiwrapper.tar.gz

or

tar -jxvf ndiswrapper.tar.bz2



cd ndiswrapper

make

make install

Now get windowsXP drivers for card from ftp://ftp.support.acer-euro.com/notebook/ferrari_4000/driver/80211.zip
or use your own.
Install driver :

Code:

ndiswrapper -i bcmwl5a.inf

ndiswrapper -m

You may specify other path to bcmwl5a.inf like /mnt/c/bcmwl5a.inf, depending on where it is.

Now load the module with driver

Code:

modprobe ndiswrapper

Now you setup your card. In order to do so you need wireless-tools package to be installed ( iwconfig and iwlist are most important ).

Code:

iwconfig wlan0 mode Ad-hoc essid kuna nick pink key s:k1u2n

Now if you get IP via dhcp

Code:

dhcpcd wlan0

otherwise

Code:

ifconfig wlan0 192.168.0.32 up

change 192.168.0.32 to whatever you want.
And you shall be ready. Feel free to ask questions.
BTW. if you can not set essid, then your card is off and you will need some module to enable your buttons. Might try that acer_acpi ( first position in google ).

Ok, First off, here is what I got from lspci -v

06:02.o Network controller: Broadcom corporation: Unknown device 4318 (rev 02)
Subsytem: Hewlett -packard company: Unknown device 1355
Flags: Busmaster, fast devsel, latency 64, IRQ 10
Memory at c0204000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8K]

I'm going to download the ndiswrapper next, but I'm going to have dificulty with the rest. I don't know what you mean by install kernel headers from fedora cd. I don't remember seeing that option. I don't mean to be a pain, but I am new to both linux and command line interfaces. I have familiarized myself with the gui. Can I do all this with the gui? (gnome or kde)
I'll download and burn the above mentioned files while I'm waiting for the reply.
Thanks for all the help so far!

Edit: Forgot to mention, my wireless is turned off and on by a led button.

Oops, sorry for the double post. Not used to the forum.
Here's what I got so far. I downloaded both 1.8 and the 1.9 version of ndiswrapper, since I wasn't sure which one to use. Should I use the stable 1.8 version or the untested 1.9 version?
I also downloaded the driver you mentioned. I copy/pasted the link. I believe it's a zip file? Will I be able to unzip it in linux?
I'm going to burn those files to disk and then try to follow what you have posted so far. Thanks again!

Hmm, it's more complicated than it looks. (to me, anyway) I'm not sure where to send the files from the cd once I'm in linux. I don't know how to use the command line interface. (I don't know the commands or what directory I'm in. I just see localhost before the prompt.) Could you walk me through this? God will surely reward you for your patience! :D :D

Thanks comprookie2000, I almost got it. Everything worked fine up to step 3, #4 in the first link above. (the neowin forum thread.) I verified the driver and it wasn't there. The wireless led comes on now. In the above mentioned link step 3 #3 installs the .inf file. Did he forget the .sys file? do I need to install the .sys file the same way I installed the .inf file? Sorry for the dumb questions, it's still confusing to me!

Edit: Forgot to mention, that neowin forum link is great. It's a step by step tutorial, great for newbies like me!

Go down to instaling windows driver;
http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/m...p/Installation
You can look in /etc/ndiswrapper you should see it there.
If you need to reinstall the driver just deleate what is in /etc/ndiswrapper/
It is a little hard to get used to but once you do it a few times it gets better, just make sure to follow every step. Sometimes you will have to install the newest version of ndiswrapper to get the card to work or try another driver. I got mine from here;
64bit
ftp://ftp.support.acer-euro.com/note...bit/80211g.zip
32bit
ftp://ftp.support.acer-euro.com/note.../xp/80211g.zip

thanks again Comprookie2000. Sorry for replying so late, I've been out all day. I checked and it is there. I'm going to delete the files and start over from scratch, now that I have a better understanding of the command line interface and the filesystem. I'll probably end up wiping and reloading linux after I finaly get the wireless working anyway, I think I may have hosed it up some. I get occasional error messages and managed to crash it just a few minutes ago lol. But it's been fun!

Ok, I think I'm almost there. I went through the process again and noticed I was getting a "4 stack" warning message after the make comand. (sorry, my memory is fuzzy, can't remember more details than that.) So after reading the above links I checked again to make sure I was using the corect driver. I then downloaded the compressed stack 16 i686 rpm file and extracted it. I also loaded up ndiswrapper-1.9rc1.tar.gz instead of 1.8 version.
I went through all the process of installing the driver and ndiswrapper again, still got the "4 stack" warning notice, but was able to see the driver with the driver verification command this time. I noticed the indicator light for the wifi was blinking, not solid. I pushed the off/on button for the wifi several times, but it only turns off or blinks. I opened up kwifi manager and scanned for networks.(wifi indicator light was blinking) I saw available networks!! :))) I chose my network, and nothing happened. The connection speed on kwifi shows 54 MBit/s. On the left side of kwifi it shows "out of range, signal strength 0". Under "status of active connection" it shows:

Searching for network: any
Access Point: 00:00:00:00:00:00
Local IP: unavailable
Frequency (channel) 2.462 (11)
Encryption off

Is it just a matter of properly configuring the card or connection? I don't know how to find out the above info, help is appreciated!
TIA

Edit: I did it! I'm connected. I just needed to configure the card with the right IP address. I'm using the konqurer(sp) browser in linux to type this now. Thanks comprookie2000 and everyone else who helped!
:) :)

You do not need to install .sys, cause it's beeing automatically installed. Check /etc/ndiswrapper/ it should be copied somewhere there, but again, not by you, but automatically while installing .inf file.

Way to go, now you are going to get hooked. Is it it fun to do it yourself and not jst push buttons and hope, have fun

Lol, I broke it shortly after. I was working on it at 3:00am and didn't pay attention to what driver I installed. I also realized that I installed ndiswrapper using the 4 stack setup, as I never rebooted into the 16 stack setup after installing it. I didn't realize at the time I installed it that I actually needed to boot into it. Doh! So anyway, at least I know the 4 stack/16 stack wasn't the issue. The sucsessful ndiswrapper/driver instal was with ndiswrapper 1.9... but I don't know which driver I used. I know it was bcmwl5.inf but don't remember where I got it from. But it doesn't matter now, I installed the 64bit core 4, and can't get the wireless to work using ndisdriver1.8 and the bcmwl564.inf driver. I'll try the ndiswrapper1.9... and see how that works. Any tips that might save me a lot of grief with the 64 bit version?
Yes, it is fun! And I'm definitely hooked. I'm trying to get my wifes Fujitsu c series lifebook going but having dificulties there too. Next it will be the frankenstein computer I put together for the kids. Not sure what distro I'll use there.
Oh, by the way Blabno, I realized later that it was installing the sys file also. I have a bit more understanding now of the gui filesystem but the command prompt just confuses the h#ll out of me. I don't know what directory I need to be in to execute all these commands I see people posting here, and how to get to that directory. And I still don't understand what "localhost" is. Is there a tutorial on this? I used the help commands but they don't make much sense to me. I took 15 minutes or more just to finish up the intro on how to page through the intro files! Looks like I could get burried and lost in the help files and never see the light of day again!

Here is the 64 bit driver some are getting to work, good luck

ftp://ftp.support.acer-euro.com/note...i_4000/driver/
Here is the link with both the 32bit and 64bit.

Thanks Comprookie2000, the link is broken but if thats the same link you posted earlier in this thread, then thats the driver I used earlier with ndiswrapper 1.8.(for the 64 bit version) I downloaded it from windows and copyied it to a cd, then transfered it from the cd to linux. Maybe I lost something in all the transfering. I'll download it directly from linux this time using the network cable connection to my dsl gateway. I shoulda done that the first time.

OK, trying to get the built in 802.11g network card working with my compaq presario laptop (v5005us)
in winders it works fine
in linux, i have compiled ndiswrapper, installed ndiswrapper (both no problems)
i checked the proper driver, and installed that.. (using the ndiswrapper instructions)
Then i installed, after i do ndiswrapper -l i get
bcmwl5 driver present, hardware present
Then I did ndiswrapper -m, no problem
depmod -a, no problem
modprobe ndiswrapper, no problem
dmesg after the modprobe, i get

ndiswrapper version 1.8 loaded (preempt=no,smp=no)
ndiswrapper: driver bcmwl5 (Broadcom,07/21/2005, 3.140.16.0) loaded
ndiswrapper: using irq 10
wlan0: ndiswrapper ethernet device 00:14:a5:2d:33:1a using driver bcmwl5, 14E4:4
318.5.conf

so far, so good
iwconfig gives me
[root@localhost ~]# iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

wlan0 IEEE 802.11g ESSID:off/any Nickname:"localhost.localdomain"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.462 GHz Access Point: 00:00:00:00:00:00
Bit Rate=54 Mb/s Tx-Power:25 dBm
RTS thr=2347 B Fragment thr=2346 B
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

sit0 no wireless extensions.
iwlist then gives me:
[root@localhost ~]# iwlist wlan0 scan
wlan0 Scan completed :
Cell 01 - Address: 00:11:95:53:8E:FB
ESSID:"hubbardhouse"
Protocol:IEEE 802.11g
Mode:Managed
Frequency:2.412 GHz (Channel 1)
Quality:0/100 Signal level:-59 dBm Noise level:-256 dBm
Encryption key:off
Bit Rate:1 Mb/s
Bit Rate:2 Mb/s
Bit Rate:5.5 Mb/s
Bit Rate:11 Mb/s
Bit Rate:6 Mb/s
Bit Rate:12 Mb/s
Bit Rate:24 Mb/s
Bit Rate:36 Mb/s
Bit Rate:9 Mb/s
Bit Rate:18 Mb/s
The next couple of commands are....
[root@localhost ~]# iwconfig wlan0 mode Managed
[root@localhost ~]# iwconfig wlan0 essid 'HUBBARDHOUSE'
[root@localhost ~]# iwconfig wlan0 up
Error : unrecognised wireless request "up"
[root@localhost ~]# ifconfig wlan0 up
Now for the big one, Margo. dhclient:
[root@localhost ~]# dhclient wlan0
Internet Systems Consortium DHCP Client V3.0.2
Copyright 2004 Internet Systems Consortium.
All rights reserved.
For info, please visit http://www.isc.org/products/DHCP

Listening on LPF/wlan0/00:14:a5:2d:33:1a
Sending on LPF/wlan0/00:14:a5:2d:33:1a
Sending on Socket/fallback
DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 5
DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 12
DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 18
DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 15
DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 11
No DHCPOFFERS received.
No working leases in persistent database - sleeping.

Bit Rate:48 Mb/s
Bit Rate:54 Mb/s
Extra:bcn_int=100
Extra:atim=0

I checked the dhcp server, and it has plenty of leases.

At this point, I'm a little bit without clue. I did try a static ip address, but then when I tried to ping another machine on my network, I got :
root@localhost ~]# ifconfig
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:1441 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:1441 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:1585635 (1.5 MiB) TX bytes:1585635 (1.5 MiB)

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:14:A5:2D:33:1A
inet addr:192.168.0.44 Bcast:192.168.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::214:a5ff:fe2d:331a/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING 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:10 Memory:c0200000-c0202000

[root@localhost ~]# ping 192.168.0.1
PING 192.168.0.1 (192.168.0.1) 56(84) bytes of data.
From 192.168.0.44 icmp_seq=1 Destination Host Unreachable
From 192.168.0.44 icmp_seq=2 Destination Host Unreachable
From 192.168.0.44 icmp_seq=3 Destination Host Unreachable

--- 192.168.0.1 ping statistics ---
6 packets transmitted, 0 received, +3 errors, 100% packet loss, time 5004ms
, pipe 4

The wierd thing here, is that Destination host unreachable usually means you are pinging a different network with no route to that network. In this case, you
can see that both sender and target of the ping are on the same network.

It's almost as if the network card is telling us that it can see everyone, but it doesn't want to talk to anyone.

Any ideas? I'm guessing that I missed a step, but I went over the ndiswrapper installation instructions a couple of times, and I got everything there.

Thanks in advance!

Post route -n and
cat /etc/resolv.conf

The following is what i get when I am plugged into my router/wap/dhcp server.

I have the hard connection now, but the wireless still doesn't want to pick it up.

[root@localhost ~]# route -n
Kernel IP routing table
Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface
192.168.0.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 eth0
169.254.0.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.0.0 U 0 0 0 eth0
0.0.0.0 192.168.0.1 0.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 eth0
[root@localhost ~]# cat /etc/resolv.conf

nameserver 192.168.0.1

[root@localhost ~]# ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:0F:B0:BD:DB:2C
inet addr:192.168.0.102 Bcast:192.168.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::20f:b0ff:febd:db2c/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:874 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:676 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:722583 (705.6 KiB) TX bytes:124104 (121.1 KiB)
Interrupt:10 Base address:0xa000

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
ess:0xa000

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:1353 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:1353 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:1806243 (1.7 MiB) TX bytes:1806243 (1.7 MiB)

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:14:A5:2D:33:1A
inet6 addr: fe80::214:a5ff:fe2d:331a/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING 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:10 Memory:c0200000-c0202000

Hope this helps you, I'm still a baffled!

Well, I finally got it.
chalk it up to a) being lazy, and b) forgetting the difference between AND and OR

Lazy part... I tried using the graphical configuration, and it couldn't get a hold of the network. However, I never put in the essid in the graphical configuration. (i think that's why system-config-network couldn't start the network)

the reading part. The ndiswrapper docs say
ifconfig wlan0 up
OR
dhclient wlan0

apparantly the dhclient will try to get an address but it wants to turn on the wlan card itself. when it was up, it wouldn't get an address. when i returned wlan0 to down, then did dhclient, it works.

so boys and girls, do as i say, not as i do. not only should you rtfm, but do what it says! [tries to bury head in sand due to embarassment....]