WLAN can't connect

**hmyraune** · 01-27-2008

Hi,

I just installed SUSE, and it seems to be running fairly smooth. But I do have one problem, and that is that I connect to any of my wireless networks in range. I have tried almost every setting, and one of the networks are without encryption, so there really cannot be any wrong encryption settings... And besides, on the front of my laptop there is a slide-button for turning on and off the WLAN card, and even when it is on the 'ON' position, the light doesn't turn blue(for on). Can the card not be properly installed? It appears to be somewhat correct installed in the list of network deviced. It is a broadcom wlan card installed in a hp dv6240eu laptop.

Does anybody have any ideas? Thanks!

**waterhead** · 01-28-2008

Any Broadcom wireless will use either the Linux native bcm43xx (or newer b43) driver, or the NDISwrapper driver. The bcm43xx/b43 require firmware to be loaded. You need to use the bcm43xx-fwcutter/b43-fwcutter to extract the firmware from the WinXP driver.
http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Dr...devicefirmware

NDISwrapper is usually considered to be superior to the native driver. It uses the WinXP driver to run the wireless card. If you use this, you will need to blacklist the native driver, to keep it from loading.
http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/joomla/

**hmyraune** · 01-28-2008

Originally Posted by waterhead

Any Broadcom wireless will use either the Linux native bcm43xx (or newer b43) driver, or the NDISwrapper driver.

Thanks so far, I have to try that. But I have another question before I continue further on, and that is, how do I determine which driver the card currently uses? bcm43xx/b43/NDISwrapper?

**waterhead** · 01-28-2008

I guess that I should clarify.

The native Linux driver that you have usually depends on the age of the distro and it's kernel. Older distros (like my Suse 10.2 install) have bcm43xx. Newer distros with newer kernels may have the b43 driver module. If your card is detected, they may be loading already, by default.

To see which (if any) module is loading, enter this in a terminal.

Code:

# lsmod

And look for either bcm43xx or b43
.
You usually can also use NDISwrapper for Broadcom wireless, but not at the same time as the native Linux driver. To find out if it will support your card, you need to know the exact chipset that it has. Enter this in a terminal (as root).

Code:

# lspci

Look for the line listing the wireless, and copy and post it here. There is a list of supported cards here

**hmyraune** · 01-30-2008

Tried to type lsmod, and found out that it was bcm43xx. Then I am going to try what you posted in the link, right? I will do. But when I tried to write #sudo lspci, I only got error messages telling me that this not was a command...

**hmyraune** · 01-30-2008

I tried to install the firmware, and it seemed to work, and some lines showing installation. But after a reboot the device still won't work. So then I tried to install ndiswrapper, but when following the instructions, I run into a problem here:

"This will create ndiswrapper-version directory. Change to that
directory and run"

Code:

make uninstall
make

This is where I get the error message: cannon find command make... I even tried to run it as sudo. Help anyone?

**waterhead** · 01-30-2008

The sudo command is more common for Ubuntu. In Suse you can log in as root by using the su (superuser) command.

Code:

> su
Password: <type password here>

For the lspci command, you don't need to have root privileges. Just type the location of the binary along with the command.

Code:

> /sbin/lspci

This information may be important. I did some checking, and your laptop may have a wireless that is not supported by the native wireless driver. You would then have to use the latest NDISwrapper version.

**waterhead** · 01-30-2008

Make is actually a program that you need to have installed. I have make, as well as automake, cmake and unsermake (I needed that one for a project). You also need the kernel-source installed, and gcc.

**waterhead** · 01-30-2008

The instuctions that come with NDISwrapper don't seem right. I don't know why they want you to run 'make uninstall' as the first command. You don't even have anything installed yet!

According to the installation instructions on their wiki:
NDISwrapper
This is what you should run:

Code:

> make
> make distclean

Now log in as root:

Code:

> su
Password:

And enter this:

Code:

# make install

NOTE: The > and # don't need to be entered. They signify whether you are a user (>) or whether you are root (#). They are automatically shone in the prompt.

**hmyraune** · 02-02-2008

Originally Posted by waterhead

Make is actually a program that you need to have installed. I have make, as well as automake, cmake and unsermake (I needed that one for a project). You also need the kernel-source installed, and gcc.

And where do I get this, I can't seem to find it...

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