Wireless Network Issues [solved]

[yet41]

I'm running Mandriva 2009, and I am having problems getting wireless to work at all. I have got a BCM4312 chip from good old Broadcom.

 

I went through the 'Setup a New Network Interface' option in MCC, and I go to wireless. For the interface to use, my only option is to use ndiswrapper. I was originally trying to use bcmwl6 (I have the .sys and .inf files), but that's a Vista driver, and I've heard that they don't work so well with ndiswrapper. So I tried bcmwl5 (XP I think), but I get the error 'No device supporting the bcmwl5 ndiswrapper driver is present!'.

 

That's about as far as I've gotten. Has anyone else run into this? For what it's worth, I have a Dell XPS1530. I should mention too that I am very new to Mandriva. I am starting to feel like the wireless isn't going to work...

Edited November 13, 2008 by yet41

[{BBI}Nexus{BBI}]

There's a nice, easy to follow howto here: http://alien.slackbook.org/dokuwiki/doku.p...are:ndiswrapper take it from the Installing a Windows driver section. Let us know if you still have problems.

[yet41]

So I tried to follow things in the how-to guide, but ran into some problems. I tried to load bcmwl5.inf, but it was already loaded. I went ahead and unloaded it, then reloaded it, if that matters. When I use

 

ndiswrapper -l

 

I get 'bcmwl5 : driver installed', like I always have. But it says nothing about the hardware being present. I also don't have '/etc/rc.d/rc.modules', so I can't modify it. I am assuming that Mandriva has something different somewhere? I also have the alias line for ndiswrapper.

[Greg2]

There's a possibility that the kernel has already loaded a module that may not be working properly. We need a bit more info about your system. Please open a terminal and post the output (as user) of

cat /etc/release

and

uname -a

and (as root)

lsmod | grep -i b43

 

Welcome aboard! :)

[yet41]

Here's what I've got:

 

# cat /etc/release

Mandriva Linux release 2009.0 (Official) for i586

 

# uname -a

Linux localhost 2.6.27.4-desktop-0.uc1mnb #1 SMP Mon Oct 27 15:40:36 EDT 2008 i686 Intel® Core2 Duo CPU T9300 @ 2.50GHz GNU/Linux

 

The third command doesn't return anything.

 

Thanks for the help. I would really like to get this thing working.

[Greg2]

I would suggest using the gui drakconnect that you had started with, instead of trying to use slack instructions. If “ndiswrapper -l†doesn't show any device, it's not working. You must find another bcmwl5 driver to try to use. There are many available on the net to d/l and try.

 

Alternatively, you could use Broadcom's IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n hybrid Linux® device driver. It's here: broadcom.com/support

 

It will require a bit of work on your part to use, but the instructions are there.

[yet41]

I'm not sure if you guys can help me out with this or not, but I'll anyway.

 

I've tried to get the bcmwl5 driver to work, but it isn't happening. So I am trying to get Broadcom's linux device driver to work (from Greg2's last post). The problem is, I'm getting compile errors.

 

/home/scott/hybrid_wl/src/wl/sys/wl_iw.c:934: warning: passing argument 1 of ‘iwe_stream_add_event’ from incompatible pointer type

/home/scott/hybrid_wl/src/wl/sys/wl_iw.c:934: warning: passing argument 3 of ‘iwe_stream_add_event’ from incompatible pointer type

/home/scott/hybrid_wl/src/wl/sys/wl_iw.c:934: warning: passing argument 4 of ‘iwe_stream_add_event’ makes pointer from integer without a cast

/home/scott/hybrid_wl/src/wl/sys/wl_iw.c:934: error: too few arguments to function ‘iwe_stream_add_event’

 

I am also getting similar errors for iwe_stream_add_point and value. But I don't even see where these functions are defined or declared.

[{BBI}Nexus{BBI}]

I get 'bcmwl5 : driver installed', like I always have.

 

In which case you need to unload that driver first.

 

Here is how I did mine:

 

1. I got the model of the wireless from MCC--> Hardware--> Browse and configure hardware

2. I then got the correct XP driver for my model and extracted it into a folder.

3. I went to MCC--> Network & Internet--> Set up a new network interface

4. I Chose to add wireless and selected ndiswrapper

 

I got a message telling me that the device is already configured with the <insert driver name here>, Do you really want to use ndiswrapper, answer Yes. If you then get the message: Unable to find the ndiswrapper interface, open a terminal, switch to root and type:

rmmod <insert name of driver here>

to unload it.

 

Now try again with ndiswrapper. Once the install is successfull, go back to the console and type as root:

ndiswrapper -ma

 

This will make ndiswrapper the default driver to use upon boot up. If you have any wireless indicators it should now be on at this point.

 

The final step is to blacklist the default driver that wasn't working. Do: Alt & F2 type:

kdesu kwrite /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-compat -- edit Don't do this, follow the instructions in [b]Posted Today, 02:07 AM[/b] on creating a blacklist file

and click run. Enter your root password. When the file is loaded add blacklist <insert name of driver here> to the bottom of the list. Save the change and close kwrite.

 

Hopefully you should have your wireless installed and working.

Edited November 3, 2008 by {BBI}Nexus{BBI}

[yet41]

{BBI}Nexus{BBI}:

 

I'm trying to do what you said in the last post. When I try to unload the driver using rmmod, I get 'ERROR: Module bcmwl5 does not exist in /proc/modules'.

[{BBI}Nexus{BBI}]

Is bcmwl5 the name of the driver ndiswrapper says is already configured?

[yet41]

It's the one that ndiswrapper returns as being currently installed.

[{BBI}Nexus{BBI}]

Let's create a blacklist file. Open a konsole and as root type:

touch /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

and hit enter. Next check that the file has been created by typing

ls -ls /etc/modprobe.d

you should see a single file called blacklist. Now we are going to add your bcmwl5 to this file. Do Alt & F2 type:

kdesu kwrite /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

and press run. Enter your root password. Now put blacklist bcmwl5 save the changes and close kwrite. Close all open applications and reboot your machine. Try ndiswrapper again.

[yet41]

Perhaps I did something wrong, but nothing happened. When I tried to run

 

kdesu kwrite /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

 

nothing happened, so I opened up the file blacklist with gedit and added the line 'blacklist bcmwl5'. When I rebooted, bcmwl5 is still loaded, according to ndiswrapper. Going through mcc to use ndiswrapper gives the same results.

[{BBI}Nexus{BBI}]

Have you checked in Mandriva Control Center--> Network & Internet--> Remove a connection, to see if your wireless is there, if it is remove it. Then start again.

[yet41]

Only my ethernet shows up. I really appreciate your time on this!