Wireless Problem with OpenSuse 11.4??

[gargensis]

Hello folks!
I installed opensuse 11.4 on my machine and i have a problem using wireless. There was no such problem when I was using 11.3, somehow this problem came with the newer version of suse.
I wrote

ifconfig

in the terminal, and the output of it was

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 88:AE:1D:95:18:C2  
          inet addr:172.16.24.41  Bcast:172.16.24.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::8aae:1dff:fe95:18c2/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:36671 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:25711 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:37976448 (36.2 Mb)  TX bytes:3190133 (3.0 Mb)
          Interrupt:16 

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:223 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:223 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:18291 (17.8 Kb)  TX bytes:18291 (17.8 Kb)

I searched in the internet to solve this problem, and installed ndiswrapper on my linux. By the way, I use Broadcom wireless.
Does someone have any idea how to handle this problem? I really want to get rid of those cables. Thanks in advance.

[MikeTbob]

You probably need to re-install the Broadcom drivers. Anytime you update/upgrade the kernel, you need to re-install most Wireless card drivers.
See this link and post your results please.
http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/wir...tart-here.html
How did you install the drivers last time?

[hans51]

I use OpenSuse 11.4 with wlan and broadband
and had same problems when using KNetworkManager for KDE4
then I followed that (sorry cant post URL because no 15 posts or more, hence you have to Google for the URL to have the full howto to your problem.

Google for
suse starter step2 networkmanager gnome site:blogspot.com

that might give you the solution

howto
the KDE4 network manager appears to cause problems to many other OpenSuse 11.4 users as well
in my case it never showed any wlan device at all
until I converted fully to the GNOME version of networkmanager
and all works fine. the key to success is to completely uninstall ALL KDE4 network components and install all GNOME versions of network tools. and then make sure to have the oxigen-gtk widgets installed as outlined in above howto. then may be a full reboot.

another method to get your wlan working would be to switch from networkmanager to traditional ifup mode > see YAST > network devices > network settings > global options
there by default you have networkmanager active
change to traditional ifup

the GNOME knetworkmanager is nicer to work specially if you change networks frequently.

[gargensis]

You probably need to re-install the Broadcom drivers. Anytime you update/upgrade the kernel, you need to re-install most Wireless card drivers.
See this link and post your results please.
http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/wir...tart-here.html
How did you install the drivers last time?

I did the instructions on the website, but after running the command

./WirelessSetup

It said

eth0 no wireless extension
             lo no wireless extension

Apparently, I don't have any wireless drivers on my machine. I'm trying to install some drivers right now. Thanks.

[gargensis]

I use OpenSuse 11.4 with wlan and broadband
and had same problems when using KNetworkManager for KDE4
then I followed that (sorry cant post URL because no 15 posts or more, hence you have to Google for the URL to have the full howto to your problem.

Google for
suse starter step2 networkmanager gnome site:blogspot.com

that might give you the solution

howto
the KDE4 network manager appears to cause problems to many other OpenSuse 11.4 users as well
in my case it never showed any wlan device at all
until I converted fully to the GNOME version of networkmanager
and all works fine. the key to success is to completely uninstall ALL KDE4 network components and install all GNOME versions of network tools. and then make sure to have the oxigen-gtk widgets installed as outlined in above howto. then may be a full reboot.

another method to get your wlan working would be to switch from networkmanager to traditional ifup mode > see YAST > network devices > network settings > global options
there by default you have networkmanager active
change to traditional ifup

the GNOME knetworkmanager is nicer to work specially if you change networks frequently.

Switching to traditional ifup didn't work so i followed the instructions on the page that you suggested. I've done all things on the site, it seems like ive done everything right. But there is still a problem that my wireless doesn't recognize the wireless networks.

[hans51]

the wireless drivers of course need to be solved first
one problem that sometimes (often) occurs is that a wireless chip is SWITCHED OFF and can NOT be switched ON in linux
if you have dual boot, boot in win
use wlan to connect
keep wlan ON then reboot to linux (NO shutdown/boot) just reboot
then see if wireless extensions seen

if there is no wireless chip ON, there is no driver loaded
if you have driver and if needed any firmware (!!!) installed
then see your HW configuration if you have a wireless detected
or if wireless switch can be switched ON and OFF in linux

[hans51]

I just remembered that on my OLD laptop (acer travelmate), I still opensuse 11.3 (no longer used/maintained by me)
I checked the installed packages for wireless:

at the time of install, there were NO b43 drivers from opensuse for wireless available
there also was NO firmware available

hence I then used
ndiswrapper
AND
b43-fwcutter

to get b43 drivers WITH firmware from my win vista partiction.

if you check your
/lib/firmware/b43

you need a bunch of firmware installed for browadcom

NOW you have both,

b43-firmware
AND
several wireless driver packages in opensuse for install
that should make the need for ndiswrapper and b43-fwcutter obsolete in opensuse 11.4

"search" in YAST software management for "broadcom"
and see what packages are available and installed to meed your systems HW need

then make a YAST search for "wireless"

in my opensuse 11.3 I have there installed the packages

- iw
- libiw30
- wireless-regdb
- wireless-tools

with the firmware installed
the wlan driver in use is the

b43

with firmware and drivers in the current opensuse 11.4 packages, most likely the suse offered firmware and drivers may do the same job as the previous ndiswrapper method.

you still need to make sure your wireless switch is ON when booting Linux, for some laptop models that is an OLD issue I had many times.

I leave my old laptop with broadcom wlan running the next several hours, just in case you have another question until solved.

needless to say that you most likely NEED to reboot your linux after all packages/drivers/firmware installed before it is properly detected and used.

[gargensis]

Hello again friends!
Sorry for such a late reply because i was travelling. I finally made it working. I did what this article
Fix BCM4311/4312/4321/4322 Wireless in openSUSE 11.1 and earlier | SUSE & openSUSE says and it is working I spent days for searching to find a solution to the common problem. Finally, I am at rest. I did not need to use ndiswrapper or madwifi. I dont know maybe they also offer a good solution but I couldn't make them work. Anyway, thanks for your help