Hello.

I just installed SlackWare 14 on an (old) Acer Aspire 5101AWLMi. The laptop also has a Windows XP installation that works perfectly.

After installing Wicd I was still unable to make a wireless connection.

In Netconfig I used:
Hostname: slackbox
Domain: slackwareworld.com
IP: DHCP

Running ifconfig does NOT show the wlan adapter, when adding the -a parameter it does show. The adapter shows up in iwconfig.

iwconfig wlan0 power > Current mode: on
iwconfig wlan0 scan > Interface doesn't support scanning : Network is down.

When I try to start the adapter:
ifconfig wlan0 up > SIOCSIFFLAGS: No such file or directory.


In Wicd I have a "Switch Off Wi-Fi" button. This button does actually toggle the WiFi LED on the front of my laptop.


Name in lspci:
Broadcom Corporation BCM4318 [AirForce One 54g]

All the information I found on the Wireless network card (in windows):
Name: Broadcom 802.11g Network Adapter - Packer Scheduler Miniport
Provider: Broadcom


From reading other thread/sites I assume I'm missing a (partial) firmware/driver for the device but I have no idea where or what to download/install.

Thanks

That card is supported by the b43 driver. See this link -->http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/b43

You will need to install b43-fwcutter. It is available from SlackBuilds.org. The description on the above link is written for fedora and suse. It will give you a good idea on how to get the firmware installed, and make sure the drive is loaded.

You should be able to get the adapter configured with WICD.

Hey thanks for the info.
I ended up installing b43-fwcutter and b43-firmware through SBo Packages.

Thanks a ton!

You are welcome.