Broadcom wireless problems SOLVED

[Snapshot]

I installed PCLOS on my grand-daughter's Dell Inspiron mini but cannot get the wireless card to work. It is a BCM4322 802.11a/b/g/n Wireless LAN controller. Trying to configure it I get the message "Could not install the packages (dkms-broadcom-wl)!" Using Synaptic I see that that package is already installed so why can't I connect or why do I get that message? I don't have a wireless router at home but should that matter if I'm merely trying to configure the system? Thanks.

[AS]

broadcom-wl driver is known to conflict with b43 driver ... you may need to blacklist the b43 and b43legacy modules and reboot.

please check also: http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,104737.0.html

to blacklist a module, edit the file /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist and add the followings:

blacklist b43
blacklist b43legacy

AS

[Snapshot]

I'll work on it. Thanks.

[AS]

I'll work on it. Thanks.

You are welcome!

Please keep us informed about the results 

AS

[Snapshot]

That didn't help at all. The same error message appears. There is a message "Some packages (broadcom-wl) are required but aren't available. Please email texstar @ gmail.com about it.

The following component is missing: wl

The required files can also be installed from broadcom.com/support/802.11/linux_sta.php"

[AS]

That didn't help at all. The same error message appears. There is a message "Some packages (broadcom-wl) are required but aren't available. Please email texstar @ gmail.com about it.

The following component is missing: wl

The required files can also be installed from broadcom.com/support/802.11/linux_sta.php"

please, open a terminal and run the following commands:

Code: [Select]

su            # provide your root password
rpm -qa | grep broadcom
uname -r
dkms status

[Snapshot]

broadcom-wl, 5_100_82_112-1pclos2012: added
Error! Could not locate dkms.conf file
File: does not exist
What is this telling me? Thanks for the help.

[AS]

broadcom-wl, 5_100_82_112-1pclos2012: added
Error! Could not locate dkms.conf file
File: does not exist
What is this telling me? Thanks for the help.

there is an issue around dkms ... probably you have updated dkms package to dkms-2.2.0 actually in testing ...
please verify with:

Code: [Select]

rpm -q dkms
ls -l /var/lib/dkms


[Snapshot]

dkms-2.2.0.3-pclos2012

total 24
drwxr-xr-x 4 root toot 4096 May 8 13:51 broadcom-wl/
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  6 Jul 8 2008 dkms_dbversion
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 May 8 13:51 fglrx/
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 May 8 13:54 nvidia173/
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 Jan 31 10:58 nvidia96xx/
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 May 8 13:53 nvidia-current

[AS]

dkms-2.2.0.3-pclos2012

OK, confirmed ... but you should not be using the testing section ... testing is about "possibly unstable packages..."

Anyway, you need to downgrade dkms to version 2.0.19:
 to do so open synaptic, select the package dkms, then Synaptic Top menu -> Package -> Force version -> 2.0.19, do the same for package dkms-minimal.

when done, from a terminal run the following commands, other instructions will follow depending on the result:

Code: [Select]

rpm -qa | grep kernel
dkms status

[Snapshot]

The wireless card is now configured but until I can find a free wifi network I won't be able to test it. That said it looks ok now. Thanks for the help and if there are any more problems I'll post back. For now I'll mark this one solved.

BR,
Bob