Help on installing wireless drivers on Debian

[AlphaGhost]

hello, ive googled around and asked my friends, but each answer i get is not working for installing wireless drivers for debian. im running a laptop with a:

Broadcom Corp. BCM4318 [AirForce One 54g] 802.11g wireless connection,

but when i install it using the drivers from the cd, it cant detect my access point, is the normal and can it detect it later? the wireless device on my laptop wont act like i turn it on when i push the wLan button. but when i just install the regular NIC drivers, i am unable to install the wireless drivers later on. this frimware cutter, fwcutter, didnt work too hot for me. any help, a tutorial, or some sort of recommendation would be much appreciated.

[Dapper Dan]

By most accounts I've seen here, the Broadcom drivers just don't perform satisfactorily for most and are fairly aggravating to get set up. I'd seriously consider using ndiswrapper to get that card working. I have a pcmcia card with the Broadcom chipset and it works very well with ndiswrapper. If you decide to go that route, this might be a good place to start.

[AlphaGhost]

i followed the debian tutorial you linked me to, thank you for that, but im still getting errors with the bcm43xx-fwcutter, debian just doesnt like it. if i do the debian package for the bcm43x-fwcutter or the way you linked me to, i get the same error. i also followed this website, b43 - Linux Wireless but it didnt work either, same error message.

[Dapper Dan]

waterhead is real good with this type of problem. If he doesn't see this, PM him and ask him if he'll help you out here on this thread. Sorry I couldn't help you more...

[Transmogrifox]

HOW-TO install the Broadcom bcm43xx Driver in Debian Linux and enable WPA Encryption - LinuxQuestions.org

Is another good link for doing this.

...and what appears to be more complete:
bcm43xx - Debian Wiki

I had a similar problem using what I got out of the standard repository. I finally got the card working properly with help from a tutorial that I can't remember how to find now.

When you have tried a few approaches like you have now, you need to clean up before you continue. In my online google searches trying to troubleshoot wireless cards I have come across many frustration posts that were later solved by disabling or removing broken or conflicting drivers.

First use synaptic to completely remove the bcm43xx drivers.

do an
$lsmod
And if you find any bcm* modules,
#rmmod bcm43xx
(or whatever broadcom driver modules are there)

If it says the driver is in use, and can't remove it...
Then go to
$ cd /lib/modules/$(uname -r)

Then as root, delete any bcm43xx looking module. Probably called something like bcm4318.ko. You'll probably want to delete these whether you can rmmod or not.

I can't tell you exactly what the names of the .ko files are because I'm not in front of the computer with the Broadcom 4318 installed. It might have a whole bunch of bcm modules in there.

After you have reinstalled the modules, do the normal

# modprobe -a
#iwconfig

Also try an
# iwlist scan

and see if it returns a list of available access points

Either way, the card will be able to associate an access point when it is working properly.

A problem of this sort, however, may not be due to anything more than improper configuration of your wireless parameters. You may try an open network to start with. If you can connect to an open network, but not to a WPA or WEP encrypted network, then you can't really tell whether it's a driver issue or a configuration problem.

It will be nice when the GNU/Linux flavors have exceeded Microsoft support of wireless cards. Wireless drivers and video cards have captured many hours of hair-twisting for me. At the same time, I can't say I'm a very big fan of M$ wireless tools either.

If it doesn't work with M$, you're stuck talking to a support tech who reads publicly available troubleshooting wizards to you in broken English that's so bad it sounds like a different language.

If it doesn't work in Linux, you can come to any number of online forums frequented by real computer gurus who know what they're doing...maybe even the guy who wrote the software.

[rbn14]

fwcutter worked really well (and easilly) for me. The trick was getting the firmware since it is not distributed with the OS. Have you grabbed the firmware?

[Agent-X]

Hmm, firmware works?
That's new.
I could never get it to work.
I think ndiswrapper is a good choice for those who don't want to bother with the fwcutter.
I have made ndiswrapper work. I know it works.

[rbn14]

Ya, ndiswrapper works fine. This was the first time I had used fwcutter and was surprised how easy it was. Dmesg even has a link to where you get the firware.