Wireless Driver Issues

**DumbMum** · 02-08-2010

I have a new Dell Studio laptop and has loaded with correct 64 bit suse 11.2.
However, I have found that the wireless is not detecting any AP's at all. This came preloaded with Windows 7 and on the set up it did detect AP's. I obviously replaced Windows (with a new hard drive) alsowhile trying to work out what was going on I loaded a live cd of Ubantu 9.1 and it came up with an interesting suggestion - stating that the driver for my wireless card was locked and that I should unlock it, however one of the drivers did not unlock and the other one it downloaded and installed the drivers successfully, this lasted for all of 10 seconds before it stated that it was locked again.
I have been through the diagnostic sticky and followed the steps and I am even more confused now as the driver seems to be loading the firmware and in the hardware information the card is successfully detected and it says the driver is active.
The device is Broadcom 4322 WLAN.
The relevant section in the boot.msg states the following:-
b43-phy0: Broadcom 4322 WLAN found (core revision 16)
<6>[ 5.357111] ohci1394: fw-host0: OHCI-1394 1.1 (PCI): IRQ=[17] MMIO=[fc600000-fc6007ff] Max Packet=[2048] IR/IT contexts=[4/4]
<6>[ 5.362400] sdhci-pci 0000:09:01.1: SDHCI controller found [1180:0822] (rev 22)
<6>[ 5.362444] sdhci-pci 0000:09:01.1: PCI INT B -> GSI 18 (level, low) -> IRQ 18
<6>[ 5.364579] Registered led device: mmc0::
<6>[ 5.365846] mmc0: SDHCI controller on PCI [0000:09:01.1] using DMA
<3>[ 5.367430] b43-phy0 ERROR: FOUND UNSUPPORTED PHY (Analog 8, Type 4, Revision 4)
<4>[ 5.367469] b43: probe of ssb0:0 failed with error -95
<6>[ 5.367485] Broadcom 43xx driver loaded [ Features: PML, Firmware-ID: FW13 ]
<6>[ 5.382449] ACPI: AC Adapter [ADP1] (off-line)

The kernal driver in hardware information is ssb and states the wireless controller as :
BCM4322 802.11a/b/g/n wireless LAN controller

I have been told elsewhere to download the "Broadcom wl" package - which I have done but have been unable to install it. I had heard it involves kernel changes which is way way beyond me - have tried through YaST

Can anyone help me in a sort of "idiot proof way" - pretty please

**reed9** · 02-08-2010

Yes, you need the broadcom-wl driver. You'll need to enable the Packman repository first.

Then

Code:

sudo zypper install broadcom-wl broadcom-wl-kmp-$kernelflavor

Where $kernelflavor is your type of kernel. I'm not too familiar with opensuse, but presumably that would be broadcom-wl-kmp-default or broadcom-wl-kmp-desktop.

You should be able to figure out the kernel looking at the output of

Code:

uname -r

or

Code:

uname -a

**DumbMum** · 02-08-2010

I do not have any internet access on the laptop in question - even the ethernet drivers are unusable.

I can download and put onto a memory stick and possibly install through yaST - however, if it is a tarball I am not sure how to compile/install from this.

**gogalthorp** · 02-08-2010

Have you tried to set up your wired connection via Yast??You really need that working first.

**reed9** · 02-08-2010

You can download the files from here. They are rpm files, not source files.

Put them on a USB stick, transfer them over to your home directory and install with

Code:

sudo rpm -Uvh broadcom-wl-5.10.91.9.3-6.pm.7.3.x86_64.rpm
sudo rpm -Uvh broadcom-wl-kmp-default-5.10.91.9.3_2.6.31.12_0.1-6.pm.7.3.x86_64.rpm

Assuming broadcom-wl-kmp-default is the correct package for your kernel.

I am not positive that there are no other dependencies necessary, however. I know there are in Ubuntu, but I'm not very familiar with opensuse.

**gogalthorp** · 02-08-2010

Suse 11.2 defaults to desktop kernel unless told otherwise at the install. Just make sure that the kernel types match the one you are running.

**DumbMum** · 02-08-2010

Hi
These two packages apprear to have installed successfully - however, I can still not scan for any AP's - no other dependancies cropped up during installation.

Getting seriously desperate !!!

**reed9** · 02-08-2010

Once the driver is installed, you'll need to load the module. In theory, it should automatically be detected and load at boot. Check the output of

Code:

lsmod | grep wl

to see if it's loaded. No output means it isn't.

To load by hand do

Code:

sudo modprobe wl
sudo depmod -a

You'll also need to make sure the b43 driver is not loaded

Code:

sudo ifconfig wlan0 down
sudo modprobe -r b43

And if it continues to load at boot, blacklist it

Code:

echo "blacklist b43" | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

Or otherwise edit the file /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf and append the line blacklist b43 to the end.

Bring the interface back up if needed

Code:

sudo ifconfig eth1 up

Note that the wl driver usually names the interface eth1 and the b43 driver names it wlan0. It's possible this is not always the case. Check the interface names with

Code:

iwconfig

**DumbMum** · 02-08-2010

When doing the sudo modprobe wl command it return a fatel error - module wl not found. However, this installed quite successfully with yaST and I have noticed 2 extra options have been added to the boot loader.

**reed9** · 02-08-2010

If the module wasn't found, then it didn't get installed properly. Maybe we should work on getting the wired connection up and make this easier.

What is your ethernet card? Post the output of

Code:

lspci -vnn

or find the ethernet card in that output and post that.

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