Slackware broadcom 4311 wireless problem
 

Hello,

I'm new to Linux and have installed slackware 14.1 on my dell vostro 1000 laptop which uses a broadcom wireless. I don't have access to a physical eternet connection so I have the latest broadcom sta slackbuild and 32bit source on a USB stick. I ran the slack build and used installpkg with the output no problem. But when I reboot it says fixing recurring error. After rebooting iwconfig shows no extensions but I'm not sure if it is reversing the package install or not.

I read elsewhere iwconfig won't always show and eth1 can be added manually in wicd but I can only use iwconfig as no Internet or access to another machine.

I also tried the recommended blacklist.conf creation but still same error, that maybe even causing it but when I delete it still no wireless extensions.


Any tips? Thanks in advance

what does `ifconfig` show?

Ok I just did a fresh install of slackware. Shall I install the driver package and then tell you what it days?

Right now it says

Lo: flags=73 up,loopback,running Mtu 65536
Inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 255.0.0.0
Inet6 ::1 precocial 128 scopeid 0x10(host)
Loop txqueuelen 0 (local loopback)

Then just packet data

Yes, try installing the driver now and see what it says after that.

I'm assuming you are following the install instructions from slackbuilds.org ?

After installing the package and reboot ifconfig says the same thing. Though I did notice an error on boot

b43-phy0 error: download correct firmware for b43#devicefirmware

Is that right or is it just because I haven't blacklisted anything yet?

Yep there instructions, broadcom sta slackbuild, copy source into folder, run the build then install pkg in tmp

That's it, all goes through no prob and I reboot

I didn't blacklist anything yet though as it seems that's what causes the fixed recording boot error ad I didn't have it this time

Yeah that is definitely a problem, when I follow the readme and create b43_blacklist.conf in modprobe.d
and blacklist b43, b43legacy, ssb etc and reboot I get fixing recursive fault but reboot is needed

I believe you need to do these slackbuilds as well:
http://slackbuilds.org/repository/14.../b43-firmware/

http://slackbuilds.org/repository/14.../b43-fwcutter/


The reasoning is that while Broadcom allows you to install the drivers, it does not recognise the firmware. So you have to "cut" the firmware image from the chip, and store it somewhere on your hard drive. And that's about the extent of my understanding of fancy concepts like that. Point is, do those two slackbuilds, reboot or whatever, and things should start to work.