WiFi

Infatuas · 10-24-2006, 04:05 PM

Hello Everyone,
Well... I installed linux for the first time yesterday... I am using Fedora Core 6 W/ GUI. went to system>administrator>network, and both of my connection hardware was detected. Wifi drivers and NIC seem to be detected. I click eth0 which is my nic and got a connection, deactivated it then tried my wifi... I cant get connected for the life of me even when wifi is detected. I cant get my blue light on my laptop to turn on like it does when wifi is active in windows. how do i get wifi working and the light to light up like it does in windows so i can get a connection.... please help me... luckily i have dual boot... so i can bounce back and forth.

Infatuas · 10-24-2006, 04:48 PM

Look Below... Wifi cannot be this hard lol... thanks

Infatuas · 10-24-2006, 04:54 PM

Here is the output from lspci from someone else, couldn't do it cause i use gui for fedora core 6. Aparently my drivers are within the kernel. like i said under network sees eth0 as my wireless but still cant connect even after i input my ssid name no wep for now. also blue light will not turn on my wireless button.

Code:

0000:00:00.0 Host bridge: nVidia Corporation nForce3 Host Bridge (rev a4)
0000:00:01.0 ISA bridge: nVidia Corporation nForce3 LPC Bridge (rev a6)
0000:00:01.1 SMBus: nVidia Corporation nForce3 SMBus (rev a4)
0000:00:02.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation nForce3 USB 1.1 (rev a5)
0000:00:02.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation nForce3 USB 1.1 (rev a5)
0000:00:02.2 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation nForce3 USB 2.0 (rev a2)
0000:00:06.0 Multimedia audio controller: nVidia Corporation nForce3 Audio (rev a2)
0000:00:06.1 Modem: nVidia Corporation: Unknown device 00d9 (rev a2)
0000:00:08.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation nForce3 IDE (rev a5)
0000:00:0a.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation nForce3 PCI Bridge (rev a2)
0000:00:0b.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation nForce3 AGP Bridge (rev a4)
0000:00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration
0000:00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map
0000:00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller
0000:00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control
0000:01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV17 [GeForce4 420 Go 32M] (rev a3)
0000:02:00.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments TSB43AB21 IEEE-1394a-2000 Controller (PHY/Link)
0000:02:01.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)
0000:02:02.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4303 802.11b Wireless LAN Controller (rev 02)
0000:02:04.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1620 PC Card Controller (rev 01)
0000:02:04.1 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1620 PC Card Controller (rev 01)
0000:02:04.2 System peripheral: Texas Instruments PCI1620 Firmware Loading Function (rev 01)

Hangdog42 · 10-24-2006, 05:11 PM

Quote:

0000:02:02.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4303 802.11b Wireless LAN Controller (rev 02)

That is your wireless card, and I would bet that Fedora is using the bcm43xx driver. You can check the output of lsmod to make sure. The part that Fedora probably hasn't done however is install firmware. If you go to my help site (link in my sig) I've got a section on installing the firmware using a program called fwcutter. Once you've got firmware installed, the card is likely to work.

Infatuas · 10-24-2006, 05:54 PM

I will go ahead and give it a shot... remember this, i use a gui, when i type commands in the terminal i really dont have an idea on what i am doing... lol thanks

Infatuas · 10-24-2006, 05:58 PM

I went to your site and it is very confusing to me. I dont mean to be a pain but people are saying type lspci i go to the terminal and type lspci and it says unknown command... i also have no idea how to get the ndiswrapper installed.

d2490n · 10-25-2006, 03:18 AM

lspci will work if you su to root. if your going to use linux i wold say that you need to learn to work in the command line, otherwise you may never get anything to work the way you want. if you get the bcm drivers to work with fwcutter than you wont need to install ndiswrapper. imo bcm drivers are essayer than ndiswrapper.

Hangdog42 · 10-25-2006, 07:13 AM

Quote:

I went to your site and it is very confusing to me

That's fine, but it would help us if you would start with what is confusing you.

Infatuas · 10-25-2006, 11:03 AM

I went to add remove software and found the bcmxx stuff, i unpackaged it, now what do i need to do, it was the firmware stuff... whats next... i also unpackaged wifiradar along with the broadcom firmware drivers... now what

Hangdog42 · 10-25-2006, 11:32 AM

I'm guessing that you've downloaded an RPM containing the firmware for bcm43xx. Did the process you use install the RPM? Sorry, I'm really not familiar with the add/remove software tools Fedora uses.

One possible way to tell if the firmware was installed would be to look in /lib/firmware and see if there are a bunch of files starting with bcm43xx. If there are, you should be able to load the bcm43xx module and use the card.

Infatuas · 10-25-2006, 01:59 PM

Ok, So Far I have Installed Linux As Dual Boot... When i go to system>administration>network i see two pieces of hardware etc0 - LAN and etc1 - Wireless... Lan works great... when i attempt to activate wirless it says cable unplugged lol... Also, my wifi button on my laptop does not light up at all i'm assuming cause ther eis not driver as of yet. laptop is an hp pavilion zv5000 with wireless chipset of bcm43xx... i unpackaged the firmware extractor for broadcom i thought it was the actual firmware but i miss read.. what is my next step... please be detailed. I really appriciate the help... below is link to screenshot i took with firmware list up and the package for broadcom...

http://www.justborndesigns.com/Screen.png

Hangdog42 · 10-25-2006, 02:33 PM

You definitely do not have firmware installed. OK, here is what you do (provided that the fwcutter package actually installed).

Open a console
Create a directory (lets call it broadcom)
Download wl_apsta.o and put it in the broadcom directory
At the prompt type fwcutter wl_apsta.o
Now copy all the files ending in .fw to the /lib/firmware directory.

Now if you load the bcmr43xx module, it should work.

Infatuas · 10-25-2006, 02:50 PM

Ok made a broadcom folder on desktop with that file in it. opened consol and typed fwcutter blahblahblah nothing worked, couldn't move that file to the firmware folder either.

http://www.justborndesigns.com/Screenshot.png

Hangdog42 · 10-25-2006, 04:15 PM

Quote:

Where do i find the module?

All modules are in /lib/modules, but you use the modprobe command to remove or install one. So modprobe bcm43xx would install it and modprobe -r bcm43xx would remove it. You have to be root, but you can run those commands from anywhere.

Quote:

The requested URL /drinus/airport/wl_apsta.o was not found on this server.

Try here.

Infatuas · 10-26-2006, 05:28 PM

ok installed fedora 6.... unpackaged bcm43xx firmware extractor

network detects wireless wifi light will not come on still... went to terminal typed

bcm43xx-fwcutter -w|--target-dir /lib/firmware/

to extract the file to firmware directory says cannot open input file or something like that

is there someone that is willing to help me live on aim