[SOLVED] Mga3 Broadcom 4318 wireless won't connect on boot

[tandrews16]

Using 32-bit Mageia 3 clean install (everything but /home formatted) from the DVD (non-free stuff enabled) and a PCI card with a BCM4318 chip in my desktop. As I have since Mandriva 2010.0, I used b43-fwcutter to install firmware after the install. After rebooting, I attempted to use MCC's "Set up a new network..." but there was no SSID list on wlan0. There should have been at least two SSIDs, possibly three. Looking at Wireless in the Network Center, all three SSIDs showed after I hit the Refresh button. I configured a simple connection to my network (no encryption) and connected manually. The connection worked with no problems, and I was able to configure the mirror list and download software.

After shutting down and rebooting later, there was no connection again, until I used a refreshed Network Center to make it manually. I tried removing all the mga3 non-free firmware packages - same result. I tried using MCC to remove the wlan0 connection to try to establish a new one, but there was still no list in "Set up a new..." and the wlan0 "connection" had not been removed from the Network Center. As before, the Refresh button and manual connection worked.

No idea what to do from here, other than perhaps file a bug report. The b43 driver has always been usable with this device, and it still seems to be with Mageia 3 - once things are initialized manually.

[sander85]

What happens if you open MCC -> Hardware -> Browse and configure hardware. Does it want to install any broadcom related packages?

Run this command:

lspcidrake -v

and copy the broadcom related line.

[tandrews16]

(Typed in by hand on anther computer, as I wanted the information to be as it is before manually making the connection)

Thanks for your reply. Yes, MCC wants to install b43-openfwwf. It also wants to install wpa_supplicant.
The other requested line:
ssb : Broadcom Corporation | BCM4318 [Air Force One 54g] 802.11g Wireless LAN Controller [NETWORK_OTHER] (vendor:14e4 device:4318 subv:1043 subd:100f) (rev: 02)

I wanted to use the b43-cutter- installed firmware, as the b43 driver has always worked before, and I have read of problems with the driver that uses b43-openfwwf and some devices, at least in Mageia 2. I'm willing to try b43-openfwwf, but that no doubt means that I should remove the firmware installed by b43-cutter first, and I'm unsure how to do that. Could simply deleting the contents /lib/firmware/b43 do the trick?

If it turns out that I still need the b43-fwcutter firmware, I suppose I'll need to blacklist the module that wants the b43-openfwwf package. I'll want some advice on doing that, too.

[tandrews16]

On a hunch, I went ahead and tried installing both b43-openfwwf and wpa_supplicant without removing the firmware installed by b43-cutter. It seems to be working now. MCC's "Set up a new..." sees the SSIDs, and the connection comes up when I reboot. I still don't know if I should remove the b43-cutter firmware, but as long as it's working I'm inclined to leave it alone. I have to wonder, though, that if the b43 driver module in Mageia 3 doesn't look for b43-cutter installed firmware, why include the b43-cutter package?

This is a test install on a spare partition to see if Mageia 3 will work with this hardware. The main install is still Mageia 2. Once I've done some more testing, if all is OK I will do an install of Mageia 3 as the main install. For that one, I'll avoid using b43-cutter. So I guess I can mark this one solved - for now.