b43 legacy wifi issue

[impireui]

Ok, So I have a little bit older laptop its a hp pavillion ze 5600us  The problem is my wifi doesnt work and I really have no idea where to begin...I have discovered mine is the b43 legacy version and thats about it ive come across a fwcutter and a ndiswrapper in some of the stuff ive googled on the subject but Im not really sure what Im supposed to do I dont know if i need to download some stuff or if its already here...Unfortunately right now Im using the windows xp partition to  get online and not the pslinuxos partition so any help would be greatly appreciated...
 imp

[cozzykim]

You may have to download the windows drivers for your specific card, or maybe not there are various ways to get the drivers.

Basically

1. Some Broadcom cards are supported without you having to do anything - your card should be detected in the networking centre

2. Some cards can be supported with windows drivers using ndiswrapper to interface with the card - you can point ndiswrapper to the bcmwl(x).sys win driver copied from windows/system32/drivers (or wherever they keep 'em ) onto your PCLOS drive - The cutter applications can be used to extract the required parts of the driver from the original downloaded windows driver files.

3. Some required drivers are supplied in the "ndiswrapper - bcmwl5 and bcmwl5a" packages.

Without knowing which card variant you have I suggest that you install all the packages and then see what options you're given in PCC Network Centre>Wireless

The packages below are the ones you should be looking at to get the card working.
Try searching on Google for your specific card to see how other people have got it working, somebody somewhere will have.

If you try everything first and report back with success/errors/failures then someone cleverer than me may be inspired to help, I'll do my best

Don't give up

b43-cutter      extracts drivers from .o      
bcm43-fwcutter      extracts drivers from .sys (windows driver file)
b43-firmware      contains the necessary driver files
dkms-broadcom-wl   broadcom kernel module containing proprietary driver
ndiswrapper-bcmwl5   files needed for ndiswrapper bcmwl5 card specific support
ndiswrapper-bcmwl5a   files needed for ndiswrapper bcmwl5a card specific support

HTH

Kim

[Crow]

Just to be sure:
Did you try to configure using the Control Center?  is the card recognized?  how?
Did you tried to use the drivers ndiswrapper offered?

In order to be helped please post your hardware and all what you have tried to this moment, someone more capable than me possibly will appear.

Good luck

[lynx]

Be sure to have dkms-broadcom-wl installed.
As root (in konsole):
su
modprobe wl

To keep the setting after a reboot:
(as root again) kwrite /etc/modprobe.preload

Add "wl" (without the quotes) at the end of the file and save the changes.

Now you may be able to configure your settings in the control center.

Note. There is a strange bug in my machine that forces me to manually turn off and on the wireless button of my laptop in order for the connection to be establised after a reboot.

[Timothy]

Do you know what the card ID is?

I have an older Compaq with a Broadcom BCM4318.  I had it running for the longest time with ndiswrapper and the WinXP bcmwl5 driver.  It worked for wireless networks that were either unsecured or WEP only, but connecting to WPA was an on-going struggle that I never resolved.

I never managed to have it running at all with the new "wl" driver (device not found), but I did manage to configure it with the b43 driver (not b43-legacy).  After that, it just worked GREAT.

Do need more information to help you give it a try?

Timothy.

[chiefjim]

Do you know what the card ID is?

I have an older Compaq with a Broadcom BCM4318.  I had it running for the longest time with ndiswrapper and the WinXP bcmwl5 driver.  It worked for wireless networks that were either unsecured or WEP only, but connecting to WPA was an on-going struggle that I never resolved.

I never managed to have it running at all with the new "wl" driver (device not found), but I did manage to configure it with the b43 driver (not b43-legacy).  After that, it just worked GREAT.

Do need more information to help you give it a try?

Timothy.

Odd, my Acer laptop has the same BCM4318 chip and works just fine with WPA.  Have you tried reinstalling WPA supplicant?

[Timothy]

Yes, I re-installed WPA supplicant.  Yes, I learned a lot about wpa_supplicant.conf.  Yes, I switched from knetapplet to wicd.  Nothing helped.

The only moderately consistent finding was that deleting and re-creating wpa_supplicant.conf, then sitting and waiting a few minutes, would result in a connection about 70% of the time.

[chiefjim]

Any other anomalies?  Could be the old Compaq is just getting old.