broadcom-sta wl drivers installed and all conflicting drivers blacklisted yet iwconfig returns nothing but "lo no wireless extensions"

700 · 07-09-2019, 09:59 AM

I have a broadcom bcm4311 wireless card and I've been having rather poor internet speeds using the b43 wireless drivers to the point where I can't even do an internet speed test because I can't establish a good enough connection to the speedtest website. (I have tried multiple).

I installed the wl drivers by following the sbo method outlined here: https://www.slackwiki.com/Broadcom_W...#Prerequisites

but when I do iwconfig, it just returns:

Code:

lo        no wireless extensions

And when I do

Code:

lsmod | grep wl

it returns:

Code:

wl            6201019  0
cfg80211            464211  1 wl

did I miss something?

Alien Bob · 07-09-2019, 10:25 AM

Not even one week ago you had several posts open for this exact same issue.
Now you start a new one. What have you learnt in the meantime from the responses to your old posts? Was it really needed to start a new one instead of continue with the previous one?

Tip number one: share details.
Tip number two: tell us what steps advised to you you did or did not follow this time.

700 · 07-09-2019, 01:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alien Bob

Not even one week ago you had several posts open for this exact same issue.
Now you start a new one. What have you learnt in the meantime from the responses to your old posts? Was it really needed to start a new one instead of continue with the previous one?

Tip number one: share details.
Tip number two: tell us what steps advised to you you did or did not follow this time.

Sorry, I thought because I marked it as solved that I wasn't meant to continue it. The solution was to not use the wl drivers but instead to use the b43 drivers that were already included in the kernel. I thought I'd be nagging if I asked in the same thread how to use the wl drivers as I didn't want to give the impression I was ignoring the solution of the b43 drivers.

Just thought that thread was for how to get internet working and that asking a more specific question relating to getting the internet working with the wl drivers might be more specific and a better question to ask as the initial one was more vague.

Only reason I'm asking again is because last time I tried the manual method of installing the wl drivers so I figured there was more room for human error such as not getting the firmware for it, as opposed to how I did it this time with Sbo, which I would have assumed would have the fwcutter included and run in the install script.

Apologies, I didn't mean to spam.

Alien Bob · 07-09-2019, 02:06 PM

So again, if you do not share details, like the exact commandlines and verbatim command / error output, we are not getting any further.

Did you install broadcom-sta? If so, through what means/commandlines?
After installing broadcom-sta, what is the relevant output of "lspci -v" that pertains to your wireless card?
Did you run "modprobe wl" prior to running "iwconfig"?
Does "ifconfig -a" show the wireless interface?
Did you check the output of the "dmesg" command for relevant errors?

All of this as user 'root' of course.

slackartist · 07-11-2019, 05:27 PM

I'm pretty sure this thread work for me: https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...ux-4175434970/

700 · 07-12-2019, 06:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alien Bob

So again, if you do not share details, like the exact commandlines and verbatim command / error output, we are not getting any further.

Did you install broadcom-sta? If so, through what means/commandlines?
After installing broadcom-sta, what is the relevant output of "lspci -v" that pertains to your wireless card?
Did you run "modprobe wl" prior to running "iwconfig"?
Does "ifconfig -a" show the wireless interface?
Did you check the output of the "dmesg" command for relevant errors?

All of this as user 'root' of course.

I installed broadcom-sta by using sbo package manager:

Code:

sbopkg -i broadcom-sta

encountered no errors while doing so and it said it successfully installed.
I then blacklisted the ssb, b43 and bcma drivers to avoid any conflicts. I can confirm that they were successfully blacklisted as doing

Code:

lsmod | grep <driver>

returned nothing for all 3.

The output of lspci -v is:

Quote:

02:0e.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4401-BO 100Base-TX (rev 02)
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 64, IRQ 10, NUMA node 0
Memory at f4108000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8K]
Kernel modules: b44

10:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN (rev 01)
Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company BCM4311 802.11b/g Wireless LAN controller
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 17, NUMA node 0
Memory at f4000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
Capabilities: [58] MSI: Enable- Count=1/1 Maskable- 64-bit-
Capabilities: [d0] Express Legacy Endpoint, MSI 00
Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting
Capabilities: [13c] Virtual Channel
Kernel modules: ssb, wl

I did run modprobe wl before doing iwconfig.

running ifconfig -a only displays the loopback it seems. No eth0 or wlan0.

running dmesg, relevant errors were:

Quote:

wl: module license 'MIXED/Proprietary' taints kernel.
Disabling lock debugging due to kernel taint
malloc in abgrphy done
wl driver 6.30.223.271 (r587334) failed with code 21
ERROR @wl_cfg80211_detach : NULL ndev->ieee80211ptr, unable to deref wl

ps: thanks for the advice, I can actually see how much useful info I was omitting in my initial question.

Alien Bob · 07-13-2019, 06:20 AM

In this post of mine in an earlier thread of yours, https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...ml#post6010902 I answered you that the ssb and b44 drivers should not be blacklisted if you have a wired network interface that needs these drivers. This is the reason why you do not see your wired interface when you run "ifconfig -a".

I just built broadcom-sta on my slackware64-current computer and installed it, then ran "modprobe wl". The driver loads without errors. I do not have broadcom hardware so the driver does nothing, but it is actually there:

Code:

# modinfo wl
filename:       /lib/modules/4.19.58/kernel/extra/wl.ko
license:        MIXED/Proprietary
alias:          pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc02sc80i*
depends:        
retpoline:      Y
name:           wl
vermagic:       4.19.58 SMP mod_unload 
parm:           passivemode:int
parm:           wl_txq_thresh:int
parm:           oneonly:int
parm:           piomode:int
parm:           instance_base:int
parm:           nompc:int
parm:           intf_name:string
# modprobe -n --show-depends wl
insmod /lib/modules/4.19.58/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko 
insmod /lib/modules/4.19.58/kernel/net/wireless/cfg80211.ko 
insmod /lib/modules/4.19.58/kernel/extra/wl.ko 
# modprobe wl
# dmesg |tail -2
[  624.391487] wl: module license 'MIXED/Proprietary' taints kernel.
[  624.391488] Disabling lock debugging due to kernel taint
# lsmod  |grep wl
wl                   6463488  0
iwlmvm                294912  0
mac80211              819200  1 iwlmvm
iwlwifi               241664  1 iwlmvm
cfg80211              749568  4 wl,iwlmvm,iwlwifi,mac80211

700 · 07-13-2019, 07:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alien Bob

In this post of mine in an earlier thread of yours, https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...ml#post6010902 I answered you that the ssb and b44 drivers should not be blacklisted if you have a wired network interface that needs these drivers. This is the reason why you do not see your wired interface when you run "ifconfig -a".

I just built broadcom-sta on my slackware64-current computer and installed it, then ran "modprobe wl". The driver loads without errors. I do not have broadcom hardware so the driver does nothing, but it is actually there:

Code:

# modinfo wl
filename:       /lib/modules/4.19.58/kernel/extra/wl.ko
license:        MIXED/Proprietary
alias:          pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc02sc80i*
depends:        
retpoline:      Y
name:           wl
vermagic:       4.19.58 SMP mod_unload 
parm:           passivemode:int
parm:           wl_txq_thresh:int
parm:           oneonly:int
parm:           piomode:int
parm:           instance_base:int
parm:           nompc:int
parm:           intf_name:string
# modprobe -n --show-depends wl
insmod /lib/modules/4.19.58/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko 
insmod /lib/modules/4.19.58/kernel/net/wireless/cfg80211.ko 
insmod /lib/modules/4.19.58/kernel/extra/wl.ko 
# modprobe wl
# dmesg |tail -2
[  624.391487] wl: module license 'MIXED/Proprietary' taints kernel.
[  624.391488] Disabling lock debugging due to kernel taint
# lsmod  |grep wl
wl                   6463488  0
iwlmvm                294912  0
mac80211              819200  1 iwlmvm
iwlwifi               241664  1 iwlmvm
cfg80211              749568  4 wl,iwlmvm,iwlwifi,mac80211

Doing all of the commands you did, after I deleted the blacklist file, gave me the same results up to when I did
dmesg |tail -2
That just told me

Quote:

leds_ss4200: no LED devices found
NET: Registered protocol family 10

Also nothing but lo still shows up in ifconfig -a even after I deleted /etc/modprobe.d/b43-blacklist.conf. did I forget something?

Edit: wait, I just removed the b43, bcma and ssb modules and reloaded them again and wlan0's showing up in ifconfig -a now.

Though it's not listing eth0.

700 · 08-02-2019, 12:53 PM

Ok, so a little birdy directed me to the Arch linux wiki when I mentioned my problem: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php...m_wireless#b43

Turns out the b43 drivers don't work well with the BCM4311 wireless card and I'm supposed to use the b43-legacy drivers instead. So I git cloned the b43-firmware-classic/ dir from here as linked in the wiki: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/b...mware-classic/
I used b43-fwcutter to extract the firmware from the wl_apsta.o file which was inside the linux/ directory within the broadcom-wl-5.100.138.tar.bz2 file after I extracted it which is listed as the source at the bottom of the page.

Inside the PKGBUILD file inside the b43-firmware-classic directory, it says:

Code:

_basename_=b43-firmware
pkgname=${_basename_}-classic
pkgver=5.100.138
pkgrel=1
pkgdesc="Firmware for Broadcom B43 wireless networking chips - trusted release"
arch=("any")
url="https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/b43"
license=("unknown")
depends=("linux>=3.2")
makedepends=("b43-fwcutter>=015")
conflicts=(${_basename_})
install=${pkgname}.install
options=(!emptydirs)
source=(http://www.lwfinger.com/${_basename_}/broadcom-wl-${pkgver}.tar.bz2)

package() {
	cd "${srcdir}"/broadcom-wl-${pkgver}

	# Directories
	install -d "${pkgdir}"/usr/lib/firmware/

	# Application
	b43-fwcutter -w "${pkgdir}"/usr/lib/firmware/ linux/wl_apsta.o

	# Messages
	#msg "You should add 'b43' to the 'MODULES' array of your '/etc/rc.conf' file."
}

I figured "${pkgdir}" was just the name of the directory that the PKGBUILD file was in so I CD'd into the b43-firmware-classic directory and did

Code:

b43-fwcutter -w /usr/lib/firmware linux/wl_apsta.o

I didn't specify anything in place of "${pkgdir}" because I thought I wouldn't need to seeing as I was currently in the directory I would have specified.
But after I did that, it output: 'Cannot open input file linux/wl_apsta.o'
So I thought I'd specify the directory this time, I entered:

Code:

b43-fwcutter -w /tmp/b43-firmware-classic/ /usr/lib/firmware/ linux/wl_apsta.o

but this time it output: 'Cannot open input file /usr/lib/firmware/'

So obviously I misunderstood either what to do or what I was meant to put in space of "${pkgdir}".

What's the proper command to install the proper firmware/drivers then? what'd I do wrong?

Paulo2 · 08-02-2019, 07:39 PM

The package b43-firmware from SBo installs firmware files to '/lib/firmware/b43'.

My wireless nic is a BCM4312, it works with the b43 driver and the firmware files
from SBo b43-firmware-6.30.163.46-fw-1_SBo.

You could try that path to store the firmware and see if it works with the b43-legacy.

Code:

b43-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware/b43 broadcom-wl-5.100.138/linux/wl_apsta.o

Reboot and hopefully the firmware will be loaded.
(Here the firmware is loaded just removing and loading b43 driver and dependencies,
but a reboot is better I think.)

700 · 08-03-2019, 06:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paulo2

The package b43-firmware from SBo installs firmware files to '/lib/firmware/b43'.

My wireless nic is a BCM4312, it works with the b43 driver and the firmware files
from SBo b43-firmware-6.30.163.46-fw-1_SBo.

You could try that path to store the firmware and see if it works with the b43-legacy.

Code:

b43-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware/b43 broadcom-wl-5.100.138/linux/wl_apsta.o

Reboot and hopefully the firmware will be loaded.
(Here the firmware is loaded just removing and loading b43 driver and dependencies,
but a reboot is better I think.)

Thanks, Looks like it worked! though for a while now wireless wouldn't work unless I modprobed b43 manually at every reboot; with this in mind how would I go about manually loading the b43-legacy module? (Doing modprobe b43-legacy didn't work, I think I got the exact name of the module wrong?) and how would I go about automating it so it would load it every startup?

Also: should I blacklist b43 now that I want to use the b43 legacy drivers?

Paulo2 · 08-03-2019, 09:46 AM

Try creating a file '/etc/modprobe.d/b43.conf'
with the line 'blacklist b43' and reboot.

Code:

# echo blacklist b43 >/etc/modprobe.d/b43.conf

700 · 08-04-2019, 07:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paulo2

Try creating a file '/etc/modprobe.d/b43.conf'
with the line 'blacklist b43' and reboot.

Code:

# echo blacklist b43 >/etc/modprobe.d/b43.conf

I blacklisted it and rebooted but b43-legacy still wouldn't load automatically. I modprobed b43legacy but my wireless wouldn't work. Dmesg doesn't mention any errors to do with loading the legacy driver.

Paulo2 · 08-04-2019, 11:18 AM

Load the b43legacy in /etc/rc.d/rc.modules.local, maybe some dependence module wasn't loaded.
Also run rfkill to see if there is some block.

Quote:

Originally Posted by 700

Ok, so a little birdy directed me to the Arch linux wiki when I mentioned my problem: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php...m_wireless#b43

Turns out the b43 drivers don't work well with the BCM4311 wireless card and I'm supposed to use the b43-legacy drivers instead. So I git cloned the b43-firmware-classic/ dir from here as linked in the wiki: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/b...mware-classic/
I used b43-fwcutter to extract the firmware from the wl_apsta.o file which was inside the linux/ directory within the broadcom-wl-5.100.138.tar.bz2 file after I extracted it which is listed as the source at the bottom of the page.

I tested b43legacy and b43 with both firmwares, from SBo and that one you found at Arch.

b43legacy doesn't work at all with BCM4312, the nic isn't even recognized.

b43 works with both firmwares, and it is just a matter of remove b43legacy and load b43
at command line for the wifi starts to work (I'm using NetworkManager if this helps).

To be honest, if the b43's drivers don't work well with your hardware, consider install
the proprietary driver broadcom-sta from SBo, I think it works with all those BCM43xx.
I already used both b43 and sta for some time and there isn't any big difference
in performance or anything.

I know that you have a b44 cabled nic and sta asks to blacklist b44 too, you can test
if commenting b44 from the blacklist file prevents sta to work or not.
I think at this point is up to you to test all those options to make both cable and wifi work.

700 · 08-05-2019, 07:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paulo2

Load the b43legacy in /etc/rc.d/rc.modules.local, maybe some dependence module wasn't loaded.
Also run rfkill to see if there is some block.

I tested b43legacy and b43 with both firmwares, from SBo and that one you found at Arch.

b43legacy doesn't work at all with BCM4312, the nic isn't even recognized.

b43 works with both firmwares, and it is just a matter of remove b43legacy and load b43
at command line for the wifi starts to work (I'm using NetworkManager if this helps).

To be honest, if the b43's drivers don't work well with your hardware, consider install
the proprietary driver broadcom-sta from SBo, I think it works with all those BCM43xx.
I already used both b43 and sta for some time and there isn't any big difference
in performance or anything.

I know that you have a b44 cabled nic and sta asks to blacklist b44 too, you can test
if commenting b44 from the blacklist file prevents sta to work or not.
I think at this point is up to you to test all those options to make both cable and wifi work.

Thanks, if I can't get the b43legacy drivers to work I'll have another crack at installing the broadcom wl drivers. I just don't get why web browsing is so slow? I checked and at most I'm only using about 25% of my CPU loading a reddit or youtube page but it can barely handle loading images or video, it takes 7 minutes to even start playing a 3 minute youtube video in lowest quality. Even on hooktube.
Anyway;
I decided to check the dependencies of b43legacy and I supposedly have all of them but when I did depmod -a it returned

Quote:

depmod: ERROR: Bad version passed b43legacy