Giving up on wireless

[josephmyth]

I have played with linux for several years now and find that until the wireless issues become more seamless the novice (as I am) will still have to subscribe to the glass castle in Redmond WA. With the technology that exists today, everything going wireless or bluetooth you will have to create a dummies install procedure for retards like I.

I have suse 11.2 installed (dual boot with Vista) on a Dell 1721 laptop supporting a broadcom 4311 chipset for my wireless. I have installed the firmware as directed. I have gone through the Network connections - I turned off Network Manager and used the alternate.

Still can not connect wirelessly. Great wired but what am I missing. I had to connect wired to install smpppd or what that was at the end of the config but still will not connect.

[waterhead]

You've been using Linux for several years and you still consider yourself a noob? That's baffling to me.

Are you using the correct driver? there are two broadcom chips that are sometimes identified as a 4311. Post the output of this command.

lspci -knn

Thais for a PCI card. If yours is an external USB, use this command.

lsusb

[josephmyth]

00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: ATI Technologies Inc RS690 Host Bridge [1002:7910]
Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:01fd]
00:01.0 PCI bridge [0604]: ATI Technologies Inc RS690 PCI to PCI Bridge (Internal gfx) [1002:7912]
00:05.0 PCI bridge [0604]: ATI Technologies Inc RS690 PCI to PCI Bridge (PCI Express Port 1) [1002:7915]
Kernel driver in use: pcieport-driver
00:07.0 PCI bridge [0604]: ATI Technologies Inc RS690 PCI to PCI Bridge (PCI Express Port 3) [1002:7917]
Kernel driver in use: pcieport-driver
00:12.0 SATA controller [0106]: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 Non-Raid-5 SATA [1002:4380]
Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:01fd]
Kernel driver in use: ahci
00:13.0 USB Controller [0c03]: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI0) [1002:4387]
Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:01fd]
Kernel driver in use: ohci_hcd
00:13.1 USB Controller [0c03]: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI1) [1002:4388]
Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:01fd]
Kernel driver in use: ohci_hcd
00:13.2 USB Controller [0c03]: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI2) [1002:4389]
Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:01fd]
Kernel driver in use: ohci_hcd
00:13.3 USB Controller [0c03]: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI3) [1002:438a]
Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:01fd]
Kernel driver in use: ohci_hcd
00:13.4 USB Controller [0c03]: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI4) [1002:438b]
Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:01fd]
Kernel driver in use: ohci_hcd
00:13.5 USB Controller [0c03]: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB Controller (EHCI) [1002:4386]
Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:01fd]
Kernel driver in use: ehci_hcd
00:14.0 SMBus [0c05]: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 SMBus Controller [1002:4385] (rev 14)
Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:01fd]
Kernel driver in use: piix4_smbus
00:14.1 IDE interface [0101]: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 IDE [1002:438c]
Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:01fd]
Kernel driver in use: pata_atiixp
00:14.2 Audio device [0403]: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA) [1002:4383]
Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:01fd]
Kernel driver in use: HDA Intel
00:14.3 ISA bridge [0601]: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 PCI to LPC Bridge [1002:438d]
Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:01fd]
00:14.4 PCI bridge [0604]: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 PCI to PCI Bridge [1002:4384]
00:18.0 Host bridge [0600]: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration [1022:1100]
00:18.1 Host bridge [0600]: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map [1022:1101]
00:18.2 Host bridge [0600]: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller [1022:1102]
00:18.3 Host bridge [0600]: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control [1022:1103]
Kernel driver in use: k8temp
01:05.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: ATI Technologies Inc RS690M [Radeon X1200 Series] [1002:791f]
Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:01fd]
03:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4401-B0 100Base-TX [14e4:170c] (rev 02)
Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:01fd]
Kernel driver in use: b44
03:01.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394) [0c00]: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C832 IEEE 1394 Controller [1180:0832] (rev 05)
Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:01fd]
Kernel driver in use: ohci1394
03:01.1 SD Host controller [0805]: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C822 SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro Host Adapter [1180:0822] (rev 22)
Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:01fd]
Kernel driver in use: sdhci-pci
03:01.2 System peripheral [0880]: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C843 MMC Host Controller [1180:0843] (rev 12)
Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:01fd]
Kernel driver in use: ricoh-mmc
03:01.3 System peripheral [0880]: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C592 Memory Stick Bus Host Adapter [1180:0592] (rev 12)
Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:01fd]
03:01.4 System peripheral [0880]: Ricoh Co Ltd xD-Picture Card Controller [1180:0852] (rev ff)
0b:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN [14e4:4311] (rev 01)
Subsystem: Dell Wireless 1390 WLAN Mini-Card [1028:0007]
Kernel driver in use: b43-pci-bridge

[waterhead]

OK, yours uses the b43 driver. You should only need to install the firmware to get it working. With a working wired internet connection, run this command.

sudo /usr/bin/install_bcm43xx_firmware

These instructions are actually for Suse 11.1, so if you get any errors, post them.

[waterhead]

I see that I made a mistake when posting the command. it should be this.

sudo /usr/sbin/install_bcm43xx_firmware

Tha should work much better.

Sorry for the mistake.

[rojoblandino]

...With the technology that exists today, everything going wireless or bluetooth you will have to create a dummies install procedure for retards like I.
....

So because you have centuries using gnu/Linux does not mean you are a master on it, but is not excuse to say what you did said. I was using ndiswrapper for my network card without know an hybrid network card exist for gnu/linux. What you are proposing is to give you the answer before you try to do it by your self?

I think the use of the phorum is for getting help once you can not see the solution or you do not now the next step or what to do. An how-to works but there is an history too on the phorums that works to do not repeat same topics or find same problems. And how-to's are helpfully but are doing users that just want to copy&paste and wait for have it working. Then you ask them what does each command line and they do not know how to answer.

Anyway your network card is broadcom so try the next driver it is hybrid driver it should work also your network card is supported:
Broadcom.com - 802.11 Linux STA driver

Just chose the right one architecture 32 or 64 bits.