Hi there.

I am using Ubuntu 6.06 and have Linksys wpc54g pcmcia wireless-g adapter that I cannot get to load with the bcm43xx module like I should be able to. When I plug in the card dmesg reports

[17187879.940000] bcm43xx: Error: Microcode "bcm43xx_microcode5.fw" not available or load failed.

lsmod:

bcm43xx 124044 0
ieee80211softmac 29696 1 bcm43xx
ieee80211 37064 2 bcm43xx,ieee80211softmac

ifconfig doesn't show my device, which should be eth2. It only lists eth0 and lo. So I do ifup eth2

ifup:

me@mymachine:~$ sudo ifup eth2
Internet Systems Consortium DHCP Client V3.0.3
Copyright 2004-2005 Internet Systems Consortium.
All rights reserved.
For info, please visit http://www.isc.org/products/DHCP

SIOCSIFFLAGS: No such file or directory
SIOCSIFFLAGS: No such file or directory
Listening on LPF/eth2/00:0f:66:xx:xx:xx
Sending on LPF/eth2/00:0f:66:xx:xx:xx
Sending on Socket/fallback
receive_packet failed on eth2: Network is down
DHCPDISCOVER on eth2 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 7
send_packet: Network is down

ifdown:

Internet Systems Consortium DHCP Client V3.0.3
Copyright 2004-2005 Internet Systems Consortium.
All rights reserved.
For info, please visit http://www.isc.org/products/DHCP

Listening on LPF/eth2/00:0f:66:xx:xx:xx
Sending on LPF/eth2/00:0f:66:xx:xx:xx
Sending on Socket/fallback

the Ubuntu Device manager identifies my card correctly by calling it a WPC54G Wireless-G with Broadcom BCM4306 chip. But for some reason the module fails. I can go into monitor/managed mode manually with sudo iwconfig eth2 mode monitor/managed just fine and then eth2 will show up in ifconfig. I cannot get connected to any networks though.

I am using kernel 2.6.15-26-386

This suggests that you either haven't got the firmware for bcm43xx or that it isn't loading. Have you extracted and installed firmware?

hello google. thanks, didn't even think of the firmware. i'll try the links in your sig

You'll need fwcutter and wl_apsta.o as the source of the firmware.

I'm using the same exact card (version 1.2, even) in Debian Sarge with the BCM43xx driver at the moment, actually. Myself, I extracted the firmware from the bcmwl5.sys file on the CD (if this is a dual boot with Windows, you can also find it in C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers), and it's worked beautifully for me. So if you have problems with wl_apsta.o, I'd try running bcm43xx-fwcutter on the .sys that came with it.

Good luck!

Edit: Also, I've heard that there's a bcm43xx-fwcutter package in one of the Ubuntu repositories. You could try that to make things simpler, if you want.