EDIT: I believe I have enough "Nonfree", "Updates", "Tainted" etc. media sources enabled; the correct software should show up in a search (in MCC) if more packages are needed.
Here's my hardware:
Asrock 970A-G/3.1 motherboard (AMD 950 north bridge, 850 south bridge)
16 GB RAM, AMD 8-core 8150 chip, no overclocks
Gigabyte PCI-E 6770 video, completely passive cooled (fins like a motorcycle!)
OCZ Mod-X-Stream Pro 600 Watt PSU
Realtek 8111GR wired LAN (10/100/1000)
Generic Broadcom 4322 PCI-e wireless (14e4:432b)
One SSD for Win7
A second SSD for Linux
When I boot Mageia and go to Mandriva Control Center --> Set up a New Wireless Interface, I get two choices. The "Broadcom Limited BCM4322" or the "Ndiswrapper". Of course I choose "Broadcom Limited BCM4322" and get the message "Unable to find network interface for selected device (using ssb driver)".
"Uname -a" suggests I'm using kernel 4.14.25-desktop-1.mga6
Here are some of the "interesting" lines from lspci:
04:00.0 Network Controller: Broadcom Limited BCM4322 802.11a/b/g/n Wireless Lan Controller (rev 01)
06:00.0 Ethernet Controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 11) [that would be my wired LAN interface]
Here are the "insteresting" lines I found from the lsmod command (b43, or anything that relies on b43):
- Code: Select all
b43 442368
bcma 57344
mac80211 663552
cfg80211 577536
rfkill 24576
rng_core 16384
ssb 69632
mmc_core 139264
Interesting, when the computer booted, it complained that ucode16_mimo.fw was not found in /lib/firmware, and it was also not found in /lib/firmware/b43-open. When I used fwcutter to install this file in both places and set permissions, owner and group (-rw-r--r--, root/root) the computer now complained that there were TWO files it could not find -- ucode16_mimo.fw AND n0initvals16.fw. Even after BOTH files were placed in both places and permissions, owner and group are correct [and the machine rebooted], it complained these files were missing. And I still got the "Unable to find network interface for selected device (using ssb driver)" message in MCC.
(The ucode16_mimo.fw file is 39,296 bytes, and n0initvals16.fw is 2,738 bytes, if anyone is wondering.)
EDIT: Interesting, ifconfig lists en6ps0 (the wired interface) and the loopback interface, but does not list the wlan0 or whatever the wireless interface would be called.
This page https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/b43#Supported_devices suggests the "alternative" is the "wl" driver for my PCI ID, but what is the primary one? Are there extra modules, drivers, interfaces or kernel code competing for the hardware as things are now? Do I still have *_not_* *_enough_* modules, drivers, etc. installed?
I have a number of "b43" or "broadcom" or "ssb" packages installed. When I clicked to install "broadcom-wl-common", MCC complained that some packages needed to be removed for others to be upgraded - there were conflicts. When I clicked to install "dkms-broadcom-wl", many more packages need to be installed. So I declined both. Clearly when I am "just guessing" and "throwing packages at the problem", I am going to turn my Mageia install into something that is so messed up it would be better off to nuke it and start from scratch. I hope I have not reached that point already.
This is very confusing. Please let me know what else I need to post so we can understand what is going on here and how to fix it.
(Also, can we get a listing of subsystems commonly used for wireless, not just for Broadcom, in one reference wiki? And how each works, and how to troubleshoot or blacklist each? This would be good for the linux sound subsystem too, but let's get one problem solved at a time.)
Thanks in advance!