Wireless networking / fwcutter / compiling / HELP!!
Hi all,
First let me introduce myself. My name is Scott Zechman and I live in PA. I am not new to the world of UNIX/Linux but I have been out of it for so long and so much has changed you might as well call me a NEWBIE. Now that that is done here is my problem or should I say problems as things have a tendency to snowball. I have a Dell XPS laptop which has a wireless card in it. I am trying to get it to run with Linux. So I found this thread: thread number 507406 (this site) and it sounded just like my problem so... I downloaded fwcutter and found out the I need to compile it so.... I tried to compile it and cc was not installed (I am assuming that this is a c compiler) so... I tried to install it from my Linux distro and I cant because the Packager wants to connect to the internet so... I try to get my wireless card working and so on and so on... I can only access the net in my windows environment so it is really time consuming to keep looking things up, printing them out, rebooting, ... You all get the picture? Now on with the details. Dell XPS (1st generation) Dell Wireless 1350 WLAN Mini-PCI Card Manufacturer: Broadcom Driver: BCMWL5.SYS ver. 3.100.35.1 Linux: Fedora core 6 (newest distro on DVD) Linux sees the nic card but of course it cant do anything with it. I ran lsmod and ndiswrapper is NOT listed and bcm43xx is. So I guess that is a plus. I hope that is enough info to get started. What i would like is a HOWTO to walk me through everything that I would need to do to get this card up and running. After that is done then it will be a lot easier for me to research the many other questions I have on my own. Thanks for all the help, Scott P.S. On a side note does anyone know if it is possible to take a windows only program that resides in memory and run it in Linux? Thanks again. |
Welcome to LQ!
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Also, do you have access to a wired connection? Most wired NICs are pretty well supported in Linux, so if you can plug in a cable, you might save yourself the boot into Windows. |
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02:03.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4306 802.11b/g Wireless Lan Controller (rev 03) Quote:
Thanks for your response. If that are any suggestions that you or anyone my have in giving a newbie a little kick in the pants to get him started would be great. |
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Thanks so much for your help! Scott |
Congrats on getting it going! Just don't go too overboard in trimming down your install. One of the most common problems new Linux users run into is that they pare down their install and end up not having stuff they need. I'd use Linux for a bit, get a better feel for what you need installed, and then cut back. Don't let the sheer number of packages fool you as a lot of the libraries and basic tools aren't that big. It is usually the applications that chew up the disk space.
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HangDog42!
At first glance, it seems that szechman's situation is remarkably similar to mine - so, I figured I would drop a line to see if your "gcc" suggestion might be the key to my resolving my "DISABLED" wireless card issue.... Bear with me while I send along a wee bit of background: I am a Linux maiden and soon-to-be mono-boot Xubuntu Edgy Eft (2.16.17.10-generic) user. However, before I take the plunge (and wipe clean all remnants of the windows world from my laptop) I'd like to jump-start my wireless card (Dell Truemobile 1350 / Broadcom 4306 on a Dell Inspiron 600m) within the LiveCD environment (i.e. Linux running from a CD, not from my hard drive). Essentially, I am trying to extract and install my wireless driver's (bcmwl5.sys) firmware using the fwcutter tool (bcm43xx-fwcutter-006). A. The first few steps seem productive: Code:
sudo mkdir /c 1. I've run the ./configure and make commands, with the following results. The "make" errors are very briefly summarized: Code:
cd /home/utilities/bcm43xx-fwcutter-006 Code:
fwcutter /home/drivers/bcmwl5.sys5 I could not run the ./configure command. Perhaps because the tool's Makefile already existed (or ./configure was not a part of the setup script)? How might I resolve this wave of "make" errors. Could there be a problem with the files I'm trying to make/recompile? Is there something I need to be doing differently? Could a compile via gcc be the missing piece? If so, what's the syntax I would use to compile fwcutter? I can untar fwcutter, I just can't find / generate the fwcutter executable! Any tiniest bits of advice would be welcomed. May thanks, in advance! |
Hmm. OK, make is obviously having serious trouble. I'm using an earlier version of fwcutter (004) so maybe either the 006 version is no good, or you had a bad download. Unfortunately, I'm not able to get to the berlios site at the moment, so I can't test the newer fwcutter. Basically, make should run without errors (warnings are OK). Also, those errors and warnings look more like problems internal to fwcutter, so I wouldn't worry about gcc problems at this point. I think you're doing everything right, but fwcutter is not cooperating.
Thanks for the heads up on the lack of the ./configure. I've changed my site, and I've also added a link to the 004 version of fwcutter (here). As I said, this is an old version, but it has worked for me. Give it a go and see. |
Thanks for the input - I just found a free moment to download and test the 004 version of fwcutter that you had posted at you site...to no avail...and with a similar (to the 006) mix of "make" errors and warnings - about 5000+ lines long.
Additional info: 1. Again, I am running linux in a "virtual" setting - from a CD. I have NOT installed linux on my hard drive. 2. I am downloading the fwcutter tool via Windows XP (where my wireless card functions) - and then passing the tarball over to linux - after CD re-boot.... 3. I might have wondered - more strongly - about the file becoming corrupted as I "cp" it over from XP to linux - if I had ever had trouble with the unpacking - which seems, in both instances (006 and 004), to have been completed trouble-free.... 4. I have added a few additional lines of errors/warnings (also to my original post) - for additional clarification - these were the first bits of info. I saw after running "make": cc -02 -fomit-frame-pointer -std=c99 -Wall -pedantic -D_BSD_SOURCE -DFWCUTTER_VERSION_=006 -c -o fwcutter.o fwcutter.c In file included from fwcutter.c:24: md5.:4:20: error: stdint.h: No such file or directory In file included from fwcutter.c:24: md5.h:7: error: expected specifier-qualifier-list before 'uint32_t' md5.h:10: warning: struct has no members In file included from fwcutter.c:25: fwcutter.h:4:20: error: stdlib.h: No such file or directory fwcutter.h:5:19: error: ctype.h: No such file or directory fwcutter.h:6:20: error: string.h: No such file or directory fwcutter.h:7:19: error: stdio.h: No such file or directory In file included from fwcutter.c:25: fwcutter.h:70: error: expected ':', ',', ';', '}' or '_attribute_' before 'flags' fwcutter.h:90: error: expected ':', ',', ';', '}' or '_attribute_' before 'type' fwcutter.h:93: warning struct has no members Thanks, again, for your help! |
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A more drastic alternative might be to set up your laptop to dual boot. If you've liked what the live CD has shown you, and you've got the disk space, dual booting is a good way to get a more fully featured Linux to play with without completely abandoning Windows. Quote:
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Hangdog, I added my post to your conversation with szechman - because of the uncanny similarity to my struggles. I also threaded my issue, independantly - and this is where that "independent" thread has led:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...d.php?t=514940 Thanks for your input. Essentially, I am going to try "apt-get build-essential" or "aptitude build-essential" from the CD and try to "make" the fwcutter all over again.... I just gotta believe there is a solution to my particular conundrum.... I like what I have already seen from linux and will clean windows from my system once I have resolved this wireless issue. |
Got fwcutter made
What worked for me with b43-fwcutter-011 was:
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Have Fun! |
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