Fedora, wifi card not working, Lenovo 3000 c200, Broadcom 802.11g using BCMWL5 driver
 

I apologize. I know this is a really common question. However, I have been searching in forums for days, and I don't even know if the things I have found are what I need. Is there any sure-fire, step-by-step way that I can just GET THE DRIVER INSTALLED TO THE CORRECT LOCATION?

This is driving me bananas. Thanks for any help you can give.


(Laptop) Lenovo 3200 C200
Broadcom 802.11g Network Adapter
Fedora Core 8 (Fresh Install)

This is the driver name on windows: BCMWL5.sys


I do have bcm43xx-fwcutter on Fedora. However, I don't know how to use it!

this might be of good help. Seen it a few days ago and wonder how well it would work.
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...laptop-624819/

Brian

Thanks for your suggestion. I will try it out soon and post back on how it goes.

This did not work :(

This is rediculous. The installation process for Fedora is incredible! Why can't they include a bunch of wifi drivers like they do for everything else??

The main reason is copyright patent issues. Fedora is a US based developed distro. So it must follow many copyright and patent laws. This is reasons like no MP3 support from the installation. Now other distros like ubuntu are developed outside US territory and may not follow copyrights and such.

Brian

Hello apeace

I have that exact laptop but mine has an intel 3945 adapter in it.

Can you do issue the command:

from a terminal window and post back the results for network adapters and ethernet adapters so that we know exactly what we are dealing with.

Will do. I will post back in minutes.

Is this what you wanted to know?

03:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM94311MCG wlan mini-PCI (rev 01)


Any help you can give me will be greatly, greatly appreciated!


Here is the full listing from /sbin/lspci in case you need it:

Hello apeace

Well, that's a surprise. I hadn't realised that they would have taken out the intel 3945 wireless chipset from that laptop design and replaced it with a broadcom.

The good news is that there is a pretty good linux driver for the broadcom chipsets built right into Fedora 8. All you should need to do is download the correct version of the firmware and cut it with the b43-fwcutter program in the distribution.

However, the one thing that remains to determine is how up to date your installation of Fedora is. The b43 driver has changed over the life of Fedora 8 and it is important to match it to the firmware.

If you run the command:

it will tell us which kernel you are running and that can be used to determine which version of the b43 driver you have.

Note we are talking about the b43 driver for fedora 8, not the bcm43xx driver which some distributions still use.

b43 is the up to date driver. bcm43xx is now deprecated and should not be used in new releases. They each use different firmware and cutter programs.

It says this:

2.6.23.1-42.fc8



Again, thank you for your help. You embody the spirit of Linux by helping a newb with something so annoying.

Look forward to your next response!

-Peace

Hello apeace

That's what Forums are about, learn something, possibly help someone else with the same sort of problem.

I need to explain a bit about Fedora before we start. Its philosophy is to have the newest, 'bleeding edge', software versions that are available.

Thus when Fedora 8 came out it had the very new b43 kernel driver/module in place of the bcm43xx, that was the first time my broadcom 4318 card in this laptop worked reliably without recourse to ndiswrapper.

However, my broadcom 4306 card in another machine still wouldn't.

Then in an update 3 or 4 weeks ago I noticed there was an updated b43 package. I tried that and my 4306 now works.

I don't have a 4311 to try so I can't say which of the versions of the b43 will bring it to life, just that one of them should.

My first advice to anyone doing this would normally be to update their machine using the wired connection if possible. However, Fedoras bleeding edge philosophy has gone a step to far at the minute and if you upgraded you would get a new kernel which has caused a lot of trouble in the networking area for some people.

I suggest that we try this with what you have installed, bearing in mind that it may not work and hoping that by the time we have got that far there will be a new Fedora kernel to upgrade to.

What you need to do for this card is to download this file:

http://downloads.openwrt.org/sources...a-3.130.20.0.o

you'll probably just be able to click on the link, or copy and paste it into your browser address bar.

Store the file in a folder somewhere.

cd (change directory) into that folder and issue the command:

to un-tar it.

cd into the new folder and then specifically into the kmod folder within that.

Issue the command:

that's a space and a minus sign after the su. It gives you full root rights together with roots full environment.

From that root command prompt:

This cuts the firmware the card will use from the downloaded file and installs it where the b43 driver will look for it.

If you have NetworkManager running, you will have a networking icon on the top Gnome panel in the notification area to the right. That is what you will use to control the card.

If it is not there, from your root command prompt again:

or Gnome system menu - administration - services, it gets you the same tool. Look for NetworkManager, put a tick against it, Start it from the toolbar and Save the configuration so it starts at boot time.

With luck, when you now reboot you will be able to left click on NetworkManager and see a list of wireless networks to select from.

Try it out and post back with questions either before or after the process.

EDIT Apologies apeace if you read this. In my hurry the other evening I pasted the wrong link to the firmware package. I've amended it now.

Thank you so, so much! I am going to go try it right...now.

Drat! It did not work.

Your instructions were fine (except for one: when I issued su - it put me in the very root directory, and I had to CD back to the correct folder).

However, I restarted and everything as you said, and the wireless card still doesn't appear under my list of network devices (in network manager).

That program was checked, though, and is running on startup.

Sorry to be so rushed/not specific. My next class is starting! Will post more later if you need more specifics.

Thanks again.

Hello apeace

I think you may be confusing 'NetworkManager' and 'NetworkConfiguration' in at least some respects.

NM only appears on the Gnome (or KDE) panel and will ever only show wireless networks, it will never show devices.

NC is reached from the 'System Menu - Administration - Network' in Gnome and is characterised by having "Network Configuration" in its title bar. It may show wireless devices but will never show wireless networks.

They are two totally different programs and the NC should not be used with wireless cards when you are trying to use NM.

Incidentally, I have two Broadcom cards I can play with, the 4318 in my laptop and the 4306 in a tower.

Neither of them appear under the "Devices" tab of Network Configuration though both are under "Hardware" in the same dialogue.

Try a root command prompt with "su -" again and try the command:

That will hopefully tell you an interface number for your card, probably wlan0. Then try:

and see if you get any output. Of course if you don't get wlan0 from the first command substitute what you do get in the second.

I ran that code, as you suggested, and was astounded to see that my card is installed and the scan showed all the wireless networks I expected it too. Unfortunately, I forgot to save the output of the scan before I logged back in to Windows to go online. However, this is the output of iwconfig:

I will post in a few minutes with the output from the scan.

NUwave-guest is a wireless network that I wish to connect to. Does this output suggest that I am already connected? If I am, why can't I get internet through FireFox?

Here is the output from wlist wlan0 scan:

And in fact, all those network names correspond to those that I see in Windows.

Clearly the card is working in some way...

Thank you again for anything else you can get back to me on.

OH MY GOSH I GOT IT

I realized my problem. In System->Administration->Services, I had checked "NetworkManager" but had not checked "NetworkManagerDispatcher". Once I checked it and started it, I was able to left-click on the networking icon and connect to my preferred network!!

I can't tell you how much I appreciate all your help. This problem of wireless drivers has always been a problem for me with every Linux distro I have tried. However, I think I now understand basically how to fix the problem in the future.

My one question is this: how did you know which file to extract with b43-fwcutter? In other words, where did you find that tar file that you gave me the link to? If I have the same problem with another laptop in the future, how do I find the correct file to extract?

Again, thank you so much. Now I can begin my process of de-windowfying my life.

Hello apeace

Really pleased that the wireless works. A point to you that you tried NetworkManager Dispatcher. Some machines here I have it running on and some not but the wireless still works. I'd not considered that it might be stopping yours.

As I understand it, its function is to run scripts when NM changes state. It's obviously not necessary on this machine, maybe when I've got an odd moment I'll try disabling it on one of the others and see if there is a difference.

As to knowing which file to cut, well, when f8 came out, there was only one file to cut. When I saw the updated b43 material in fedora recently I tried it with the new firmware off the b43 site and as I probably said, that got my 4306 working.

It appears to me you have to watch what is happening to Fedora by the way of updates and have reference to this site:

http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Dr...devicefirmware

which is the homepage of the b43 driver and which specifies which firmware to use with which b43-fwcutter.

By the way, now you have your wireless running, you might be updating, and that will include the b43 driver and fwcutter. I'm pretty sure that the update will be painless as far as those are concerned and that you won't have to recut any firmware.

There have been some reports on the Fedora forum of problems with their most recent kernel though so if you do have a problem just reboot with the previous one. Yumex and Grub between them are set to retain two kernels and present them as boot options.