[SOLVED] Best way to get a BCM 4318 device working?

[tandrews16]

I've just spent a frustrating two weeks of my spare time trying to get a Realtec usb wireless dongle working with Mageia 2 that worked perfectly with Mageia 1. (The solution was to use network manager rather than the drakx tools that worked great in Mageia 1)

But now I have an even more daunting task ahead of me - getting a clean install of Mageia 2 from the DVD up and operating on my brother's computer. The only thing that worries me is the wireless connection with his Asus PCI card using the BCM4318 chip, as there is no practical wired connection available. After my earlier experience with something that worked OK, I'm concerned.

In the past, with both Mageia 1 and Mandriva 2010.x, I used the b43 firmware cutter to install firmware from a file I had downloaded, then I went to drakconnect and configured a LAN0 connection. I let drakconnect use whatever driver it decided was appropriate, possibly loading some stuff from the DVD, and it just worked. No muss, no fuss. I went on from there to set up my repositories and continue.

But now I hear that there is more than one way to drive this device, and that some people are having troubles with one or the other. My brother will give me a hard time if his computer, which is working perfectly with Mageia 1, is down too long for an upgrade. He would have no patience with experimentation. For the sake of family harmony, I'm looking for advice:

What is the best way to set up a BCM 4318 device connection on a clean install from the DVD if there is no practical wired connection available? The device needs to connect to the signal from a Linksys WRT54G V.8 on another floor. I am perfectly willing to download firmware and/or driver rpms with my computer and carry them to his on a flash drive for installation.

[doktor5000]

Which driver is it using on Mageia 1?

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lspcidrake -v | grep NET

will tell you

[tandrews16]

This is what it says:

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via_rhine       : VIA Technologies, Inc.|VT6102 [Rhine-II] [NETWORK_ETHERNET] (vendor:1106 device:3065 subv:1565 subd:2200) (rev: 74)
ssb             : Broadcom Corporation|BCM4318 [AirForce One 54g] 802.11g Wireless LAN Controller [NETWORK_OTHER] (vendor:14e4 device:4318 subv:1043 subd:100f) (rev: 02)


Bewildering to the uninformed...

[doktor5000]

Do you get any results from iwconfig or iwlist wlan0 scan as root?

OK, it think you need to blacklist ssb, and seems you can either use the free b43 or the proprietary wl driver. Easiest way would be to do as root

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echo "blacklist ssb" >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-mga

[tandrews16]

The command lspci -vnn -d 14e4: (from the linuxwireless b43 page) gives me this:

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00:09.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4318 [AirForce One 54g] 802.11g Wireless LAN Controller [14e4:4318] (rev 02)
        Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. WL-138G v2 / WL-138gE / WL-100gE [1043:100f]
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 32, IRQ 17
        Memory at e7000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8K]
        Kernel driver in use: b43-pci-bridge
        Kernel modules: ssb


So apparently the b43 driver is the one I'm using now. I have downloaded the new firmware for kernel 3.2 and above (link on the b43 page), and will proceed as before - with the b43fw-cutter.

I just wondered if people were having problems with the b43 driver like I did with the rtl8192cu driver. But I suppose if I do, my experience will tell me what to do a lot quicker this time.

[doktor5000]

Well, in general i can only give you the hint to only buy hardware with better driver support. For example most Atheros chips are supported out-of-the-box by free drivers which come with the kernel, and don't even need a firmware. Also intel wireless chips are rather well supported, even if they need nonfree firmware.

[tandrews16]

We bought the above card three years ago, on an excellent sale from Newegg. At the time I looked, as I had heard that wireless in Linux could be troublesome to get working, and the chip was supposed to be supported by Linux. While it's a bit of a bother to set up, I've seen worse things. (I have two scanners that will never work with Linux.) And it's been trouble-free with Mandriva and Mageia all this time. So, rather than buy another, I'd rather continue using this one as long as it'll work.

I did the same thing before purchasing the Encore dongle. It too was supposed to be supported by Linux, and it was trouble-free with Mageia 1. Seems to me that if a not-so-old device worked fine with the previous OS release, it's not too much to expect that it will continue working in the present release.

[doktor5000]

Just drop me a note if you don't get further with it ...

[tandrews16]

As mentioned in another thread, I finally got around to installing Mageia 2 on my brother's computer, the one with the BCM 4318 device. Using the b43-fwcutter procedure as described at linuxwireless.org, the device worked perfectly, right off.

[isadora]

Which means your issues are solved?
If so, please don't forget marking the topic [SOLVED].

[tandrews16]

Well, I didn't really have an issue on this topic when I started the thread. I was on more of a fact-finding mission, trying to avoid having an issue. But I get your point.