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Broadcom wireless & Linux 3.2.13

June 27th, 2012 - 05:32 pm ET by barnabyh | Report spam
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Hi all,

something seems to have significantly changed in the 3.x kernel line for
my 43225 Brcm chip.
The compiled 2.6.39.4 works fine with the right firmware installed which
I have since updated to the kernel-firmware package in current.
However, with all 3.x kernels I have tried since no networks showing up
in Wicd.

I've tried modprobing mac80211, cfg80211, broadcom, which all seem to
load but still no connection possible.

Atm I have the kernel from current loaded, but same issues presented with
a self-compiled 3.4.

Is it a change in interface naming? Help or pointers would be appreciated.

blacklist b43
blacklist b43legacy
blacklist bcma
blacklist ssb
are blacklisted in b43_blacklist.conf as advised for 13.37 back then,
but removing this file did not make any practical difference.

Plus the blacklist bcm43xx entry from blacklist.conf that is in stock
Slackware 13.37.

Wondering why I can't seem to be able to make it work in 3.

TIA,

Barnabyh
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#1 barnabyh
June 27th, 2012 - 05:54 pm ET | Report spam
On Wed, 27 Jun 2012 21:32:21 +0000, barnabyh wrote:

Sorry, 3.2.21 now ;).

Barnabyh
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#2 Bob Grimes
June 28th, 2012 - 12:00 am ET | Report spam
barnabyh wrote:

Hi all,

something seems to have significantly changed in the 3.x kernel line for
my 43225 Brcm chip.
The compiled 2.6.39.4 works fine with the right firmware installed which
I have since updated to the kernel-firmware package in current.
However, with all 3.x kernels I have tried since no networks showing up
in Wicd.

I've tried modprobing mac80211, cfg80211, broadcom, which all seem to
load but still no connection possible.

Atm I have the kernel from current loaded, but same issues presented with
a self-compiled 3.4.

Is it a change in interface naming? Help or pointers would be appreciated.

blacklist b43
blacklist b43legacy
blacklist bcma
blacklist ssb
are blacklisted in b43_blacklist.conf as advised for 13.37 back then,
but removing this file did not make any practical difference.

Plus the blacklist bcm43xx entry from blacklist.conf that is in stock
Slackware 13.37.

Wondering why I can't seem to be able to make it work in 3.

TIA,

Barnabyh


I was upgrading my wife's netbook, with a Broadcom chip, an Acer, and was
happily running LXDE with 2.6.38.8. When I upgraded to kernel 3.2.18, no
sound, no Skype, no multi-media. Wireless still worked, but I backed out
quickly, didn't want her to be off-line!
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#3 Douglas Mayne
June 28th, 2012 - 04:06 am ET | Report spam
On Wed, 27 Jun 2012 21:32:21 +0000, barnabyh wrote:

Hi all,

something seems to have significantly changed in the 3.x kernel line for
my 43225 Brcm chip.
The compiled 2.6.39.4 works fine with the right firmware installed which
I have since updated to the kernel-firmware package in current. However,
with all 3.x kernels I have tried since no networks showing up in Wicd.

I've tried modprobing mac80211, cfg80211, broadcom, which all seem to
load but still no connection possible.

Atm I have the kernel from current loaded, but same issues presented
with a self-compiled 3.4.

Is it a change in interface naming? Help or pointers would be
appreciated.

blacklist b43
blacklist b43legacy
blacklist bcma
blacklist ssb
are blacklisted in b43_blacklist.conf as advised for 13.37 back then,
but removing this file did not make any practical difference.

Plus the blacklist bcm43xx entry from blacklist.conf that is in stock
Slackware 13.37.

Wondering why I can't seem to be able to make it work in 3.

TIA,

Barnabyh



The supported hardware seems to be in flux, with variable instructions
depending on the wireless chipset. There are more options than before.
Check this page for instructions. It still seems to be true that both the
driver and the firmware are necessary. I am not able to test this myself
for a few days.

Check this page:
http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/b43/

From that page, here is a screencap of the supported hardware table:
http://i.imgur.com/3r7gt.png

Douglas Mayne
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#4 barnabyh
June 28th, 2012 - 02:57 pm ET | Report spam
On Thu, 28 Jun 2012 08:06:39 +0000, Douglas Mayne wrote:

The supported hardware seems to be in flux, with variable instructions
depending on the wireless chipset. There are more options than before.
Check this page for instructions. It still seems to be true that both
the driver and the firmware are necessary. I am not able to test this
myself for a few days.

Check this page:
http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/b43/

From that page, here is a screencap of the supported hardware table:
http://i.imgur.com/3r7gt.png



Thanks Douglas. Funny, for the 43225 it says fully supported in 3.1+ but
it actually worked better before in 2.6.39, as far as I can tell the only
kernel that 'just worked' with only the firmware. Did not test 2.6.38
though.

Barnabyh
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#5 barnabyh
June 28th, 2012 - 03:51 pm ET | Report spam
On Wed, 27 Jun 2012 21:32:21 +0000, barnabyh wrote:

Well, in 3.2 the module seems to have changed from brcm80211 to brcmsmac.
However, these are not in the config, albeit there's a module called
mac80211 which IS loaded.

:/home/barnabyh# lsmod | grep mac mac80211
227699 0
cfg80211 168908 1 mac80211


Still no wifi though :((

I'll keep on it. The other alternative would be to install broadcom-wl
again, but that needs an upgrading of glibc to compile against the new
kernels. Aargh.

Barnabyh
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