Problem with BCM4318 wireless LAN on Acer 5300

[Pythonschlange]

Hello,

I installed Knoppix5.0 live on DVD on my Acer5300WLMi laptop. Everthing goes well except for the wireless LAN. ndiswrapper doesnot work. The I used fwcutter to get bcm43xx*.fw files and moved them to /lib/firmware. After that I did

rmmod bcm43xx
modprobe bcm43xx
ifconfig eth1 up

Testing with ifconfig, I saw eth1 was in the list.

lsmod shows the following information:

bcm43xx 417768 0
firmware_class 11648 2 bcm43xx,pcmcia
ieee80211softmac 27008 1 bcm43xx
ieee80211 33864 2 bcm43xx,ieee80211softmac

And KWiF manage gives the green signal. But the wireless light never comes up. Then i configured the network using DHCP and it failed. I have no idea what I should do? Thanks for any suggestions.

[rusty]

Take a look ay the ubuntu forums for some ideas. There are a couple of howto threads there and most of the info should be usable with knoppix. IIRC there may be a difference between the driver for your card and earlier version, although I think you get the latest from the Acer website.

I know that one thing that is important is blacklisting the bcm43xx module in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist, then running and modprobing ndiswrapper. I haven't used the fwcutter method.

Post the output of ndiswrapper, if you like.

HTH

[ockham23]

Kanotix now has native support for BCM43XX with latest kernel: http://kanotix.com/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&p=129614#129614

[johnrw]

I had similar problems with my gateway laptop. I could not use the built-in kernel driver.
I needed to have WEP security, and the built-in kernel driver doesn't have it in knoppix 5.0.1
To make sure you have the same problem, from a Console type:
lsmod | grep bcm43xx

If you see things with bcm43xx in them, you may want to read on.

Install these 2 upgrades while booting up knoppix, using the "knoppix myconfig=" option

1) Download and put these files on the Knoppix Desktop.
ndiswrapper-common_1.23-1_all.deb
ndiswrapper-utils-1.8_1.23-1_i386.deb

2) Create a stored Knoppix configuration, and make sure you select "All Files On The Desktop".
(Once you get this working well enough, you can select the Network Settings option when creating another config file set. For now that would not be of much use).

3) This leaves 2 files on the drive you selected when creating the configuration. configs.tbz and knoppix.sh.
It will look similar to what I have pasted below, but I will be surprised if some web translation does not occur.
If you insert the lines below (taken from mine) that start off with my comments #JW, and end with clear, into your
knoppix.sh... at the same spot in your file you should have working wireless.

/************* knoppix.sh *************/

#!/bin/sh
[ "`id -u`" = "0" ] || { echo "You need root privileges to modify the system!" >&2 ; exit 1; }
[ -d "$1" ] && CONFIGS="$1/configs.tbz"
[ -f "$CONFIGS" ] || CONFIGS="/cdrom/KNOPPIX/configs.tbz"
[ -f "$CONFIGS" ] || CONFIGS="/media/fd0/configs.tbz"
if [ -f "$CONFIGS" ]; then
echo "^[1mExtracting config archive $CONFIGS...^[0m"
tar -jpPtf "$CONFIGS" | while read i; do rm -f "$i"; done
tar -jpPxf "$CONFIGS" ; chown -R knoppix.knoppix /home/knoppix
fi

# JW. These lines below remove the native kernel driver... bcm43xx,
# upgrade the ndiswrapper files,
# give me an opportunity to add the information specific to my
# wireless needs on bootup. AP name etc.
rmmod bcm43xx
dpkg -i /home/knoppix/ndiswrapper-common_1.23-1_all.deb
dpkg -i /home/knoppix/ndiswrapper-utils-1.8_1.23-1_i386.deb
ndiswrapper -m
modprobe ndiswrapper
wlcardconfig
netcardconfig
clear

[Pythonschlange]

HI rusty:

I put bcm43xx in the blacklist and tried ndiswrapper. The installation process went well, but the wireless light still refused to come up.

#ndiswrapper -l
Installed drivers:
bcmwl5 driver installed, hardware present

#dmesg | grep bcm43xx

bcm43xx driver
bcm43xx: Chip ID 0x4318, rev 0x2
bcm43xx: Number of cores: 4
bcm43xx: Core 0: ID 0x800, rev 0xd, vendor 0x4243, enabled
bcm43xx: Core 1: ID 0x812, rev 0x9, vendor 0x4243, disabled
bcm43xx: Core 2: ID 0x804, rev 0xc, vendor 0x4243, enabled
bcm43xx: Core 3: ID 0x80d, rev 0x7, vendor 0x4243, enabled
bcm43xx: PHY connected
bcm43xx: Detected PHY: Version: 3, Type 2, Revision 7
bcm43xx: Detected Radio: ID: 8205017f (Manuf: 17f Ver: 2050 Rev: 8)
bcm43xx: Radio turned off
bcm43xx: Radio turned off
bcm43xx: PHY connected
bcm43xx: Error: Microcode "bcm43xx_microcode5.fw" not available or load failed.
bcm43xx: Error: Microcode "bcm43xx_microcode5.fw" not available or load failed.

#lsmod | grep bcm43xx
(got nothing)

Can you give me some suggestion on this problem? Thanks.

[Pythonschlange]

Hi ockham23,

I tried kanotix, but it could not recognize my wireless card also.

[rusty]

I feel your pain,

I haven't had any luck with knoppix 5.1, or kanotix on my hp z600o lappy with the same (I think) card. I have been able to get it to work with Ubuntu on a hard disk install.

One difference I will note is that the dmesg output from my working ubuntu install returns nothing. So I am inclined to think that despite blacklisting , the bcm43xx module is still lurking about in yours.

If you are trying to install a working kde based distro , I suggest giving kubuntu a try , and again the ubuntu forums have a few threads on getting wireless working on your setup.

If I ever get this figured out with knoppix, I'll post.

Good luck.

[johnrw]

i did get bcm43xx working...
After getting the firmware files into /lib/firmware...

rmmod bcm43xx
modprobe bcm43xx

netcardconfig...use dhcp?
*** NO

it asked me a bunch of stuff starting out with my ip address.
*** I gave it the one I had previously been assigned by my router when running windows 5 minutes earlier.

I hit enter for everything except when it suggested default gateway to be 192.168.1.254(mine uses 192.168.1.1)
and it started to work.

If your router uses any security... wep etc... then this driver is just not going to work.
You can check your routers settings, when you have a working connection that is, usually by browsing to 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.0.1. It will ask you for a password, so check your manual for that. Check for wireless security settings.

But judging from your other post, you probably have an irq conflict. You may have to use your bios setup.
ifconfig -a
and see what irq your card is using.
http://linuxmafia.com/faq/VALinux-kb/siocsifflags-error.html

also, you still seem to be missing some firmware file, after placing them in the /lib/firmware directory.

[ockham23]

@pythonschlange: http://kanotix.com/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&p=133678