[LBo] Re: wireless setup problems

[Anerobe]

Anita Lewis wrote:

> On 10/27/2006 12:50 AM Ray Still wrote:
>> Hello all
>> shamelessly bumping my post.  :)
>> I'm trying to enable wireless.

>>> Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4306 802.11b/g Wireless
>>> LAN Controller (rev 03)
>>>
> 
>>> <snip>
> 
>>> eth1    IEEE 802.11b/g  ESSID:off/any   nickname:"Broadcom 4306"
>>>          Mode:Managed  Access Point: Invalid   Bit Rate=1 Mb/s
>>>          RTS thr:off     Fragment thr:off
>>>          Link Quality:0  Signal level:0   Noise level:0
>>>          Rx invalid nwid:0   Rx invalid crypt:0   Rx invalid frag:0
>>>          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0  Missed beacon:0
> 
> I have a feeling that you are not using ndiswrapper, but rather the
> bcm43xx driver from the kernel.  I read a couple places where that
> doesn't work.  For example this long thread that may or may not make
> sense to you:
>
http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/linux-networking/66357-broadcom-wlan-card-problem.html
> 
> Try doing:  ndiswrapper -l
> 
> This will tell you if you are using ndiswrapper and what drivers it has
> loaded.
> 
> Also do: lsmod |grep bcm
> 
> This will tell you if the bcm43xx module is loaded.
> 
> I'm thinking that you may need to blacklist the bcm43xx module and use
> ndiswrapper with the one of the windows drivers suggested at the
> http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/mediawiki/index.php/Main_Page list of
> cards page.

To rid yourself of bcm43xx and apply ndiswrapper... this was written around
the Broadcom 94306 chip, but the concept is similar...
(Reference: http://tinyurl.com/yf8ufr)

Install Drivers in NDISWRAPPER

You want to install drivers to get NDISWRAPPER working. You first want to
shut down the NETWORK service

Code:
/etc/init.d/network stop

Now you want to install drivers. Make sure all of the XP drivers are in the
same folder.

Code:
ndiswrapper -i /path/to/XP/drivers/lsbcmnds.inf

Check the status of the the drivers.

Code:
ndiswrapper -l

Now we need to add/modify an alias for the eth0 interface. Dont forget the
blank line at the end of the file

Code:
kwrite /etc/modprobe.conf

Add/Edit the line "alias eth0 bcm43xx" to read "alias eth0 ndiswrapper"

The next three commands should be run in order and should yield NO output.

Code:
depmod -a
rmmod bcm43xx
modprobe ndiswrapper

Rename the bcm43xx module file to something else to prevent it from loading
on startup

Code:
mv /lib/modules/2.6.16.27.tex1.lve/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/bcm43xx/bcm43xx.ko.gz /lib/modules/2.6.16.27.tex1.lve/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/bcm43xx/bcm43xx.ko.gz.bak


Check out the entire post referenced above.