Getting My Wireless internet to work... Fedora 7

[raiderleaf]

Do you have the drivers? If you have Windows on another partition, I think its ok to copy them from there. Is that where you got lost? Or are you having trouble with the command ndiswrapper -i /link/to/bcmwl5.inf?

How do i copy them from my windows partition? And i don't understand the ndiswrapper thing that u wrote up there.

[MikeTbob]

Well, I'm sure the files aren't very big, you might be able to get them on a floppy disk if you have one available for use. Do you have a CD Writer?
From the NDISwrapper web site:

If you already have your device working in Windows you can try that driver. Open the device manager and find the name of the .sys driver file listed for the device. You need the .sys file and the .inf file. To find the .inf file search in the \Windows\inf\ directory for a file containing the name of the .sys file. You will need to do an advanced search to search for text within the files.

Or you can try downloading one from the NDISwrapper list
NDISwrapper

Have you seen this link yet? It might help shed some light on this for you.
http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/lin...-new-post.html

[Roxoff]

06:02.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4311 [AirForce 54g] 802.11a/b/g PCI Express Transceiver (rev 02)

This is the one you're interested in. Just from Googling, it looks like this card will require the use of ndiswrapper and the bcmwl5 driver. Here's a guide that might help you get started.
http://www.linuxforums.org/network/w...and_linux.html

NOOOOOOOO!

There is a native Linux driver for this chipset, it's called bcm43xx, and it comes with 2.6.18 kernels as standard; it was included in FC6 - which I run on my laptop.

You need a line in /etc/modprobe.conf that says 'alias bcm43xx eth1' or summat like that (I'm doing this from memory, as my laptop is at home and I'm at work), and the 'bcm43xx-fwcutter' package. You run the cutter tool over the windows drivers, and put the resulting firmware in /lib/firmware.

All that's needed then is a 'modprobe -r' as root, and you can use 'system-config-network' to set up your wireless - if you add a new interface eth1 will appear in the list.

If the wireless lan needs security, WPA-PSK or whatever, then it needs wpa_supplicant or NetworkManager, either of which are straightforward to configure (but should be the subject of a new thread...)

[raiderleaf]

Uh, well I'm gonna try out what Miketbob said and if it doesn't work i'll try out the other way....

[MikeTbob]

If it's not too late, Roxoff has the right idea. Hopefully it will work either way and you'll be done with it.
I wasn't aware that Fedora had the driver available.

[Roxoff]

Uh, well I'm gonna try out what Miketbob said and if it doesn't work i'll try out the other way....

If it were me, I'd try ndiswrapper as a last resort only. Using native drivers really is much easier. Before the 2.6.18 kernel, I had no native driver and had very mixed experiences with ndiswrapper - sometimes it liked the windows drivers I had, and sometimes it didn't.

[raiderleaf]

If it were me, I'd try ndiswrapper as a last resort only. Using native drivers really is much easier. Before the 2.6.18 kernel, I had no native driver and had very mixed experiences with ndiswrapper - sometimes it liked the windows drivers I had, and sometimes it didn't.

Its not to late, but I'll need exact instructions. When you get home to your laptop please post me the commands here in the order they need to be processed. The ones u posted above u said u weren't sure about.

Thanks

raiderleaf

[Thrillhouse]

Sorry about that. I just googled the chipset with the word "Linux" and posted what I found. I've never personally had to deal with Broadcom chipsets before, only Atheros.

[raiderleaf]

Well i still need those instructions when u get a chance!

[Roxoff]

Try this:

Open a terminal window and log in as root (use 'su -' as the command, and the root password when prompted).

Use 'gedit' or 'kate' to edit the file /etc/modprobe.conf like this:

gedit /etc/modprobe.conf

And add a line at the bottom that looks like this:

alias bcm43xx eth1

install the bcmfwcutter with:

yum -y install bcmfwcutter

change to the directory where you have the windows drivers, e.g. if they're in a 'drivers' directory in your home directory, do:

cd ~/drivers

and do:

bcmfwcutter <windows_driver_filename>

You can take a look at the man page for bcmfwcutter if you want to do this better - but these are simple instructions...

This will dump a load of files into the same directory as the windows driver. Copy all the firmware files into /lib/firmware, probably with a command like this:

cp * /lib/firmware

Then do:

modprobe -r

and finally do:

system-config-network

to bring up the graphical network tool - if you add a new device, eth1 should be there. You can now configure IP addresses or DHCP just like any other interface.

If you're using a secured wireless lan, and want to use NetworkManager, then make sure the interface is not turned on at boot time, but ensure that NetworkManager and NetworkManagerDispatcher services are started in your runlevel (i.e. tick their boxes and save the settings in the 'system-config-services' tool).