HowTO: Using the Broadcom STA wireless drivers

[trulan]

Introduction:
First of all, check which Broadcom chip you have to decide which driver to use.  See this page:
http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/b43

If you have a wireless adapter that is only supported by the STA driver (aka 'wl'), such as the 432* chips, use the guide below.  If your chip works on both drivers, such as the 4311, 4312, or 4315, you may use the STA driver or the b43 driver.  Both drivers can be troublesome, so YMMV.

(Note:  the 4315 chip, or 4312 LP-PHY as it is also called, does not work properly on the 2.6.36 Liquorix kernel with the STA/wl driver.  Instead, for this setup, install the 'firmware-b43-lpphy-installer' package, then follow this guide to get things working properly:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1266620 (skip the first part about installing another kernel). works best for me using a 3.0 kernel and the b43-lp-phy driver.  No extra setup should be required.

To install the Broadcom STA wireless drivers:
Most of this info was adapted from here:
http://wiki.debian.org/wl
I've tried to keep this as simple as possible, only including what is necessary for use in AVLinux.  You'll need a working ethernet connection to download a few things:

1. Add necessary repositories:
Open Synaptic.  In the menu, under settings/repositories/third party software, check the box to enable 'sid main non-free contrib'.  Close the settings window and reload your package information.  (Using the Sid repos in AVLinux 5 is a bad idea.  The Broadcom STA driver in Squeeze should be good enough, or if you need a newer version, you can download the driver directly from Broadcom.  There's a link in post 7 of this thread.)

2. Install these two packages:
broadcom-sta-common
broadcom-sta-source

3. Build the module:
Open a root terminal and run

Code:

m-a a-i broadcom-sta

You should see the module build successfully.

4. Fix wicd settings:
Open wicd.  Click on the preferences tab.  Change the 'wireless interface' from 'wlan0' to 'eth1'
wicd has been replaced by Network Manager so this step is no longer relevant.

5. Reboot.  You should now be able to use your wireless card.


If it still doesn't work:  If you have an ethernet controller that uses the 'b44' module, this often loads the 'ssb' module which in turn loads the 'b43' module, which conflicts with the 'wl' module (the Broadcom STA driver.)  'lsmod | grep b44' will show if this module is in use.

The modules are supposed to be sorted out by /etc/modprobe.d/broadcom-sta-common.conf.  However, this still didn't seem to get it quite right on my old laptop, so I added this work-around:

Code:

gedit /etc/rc.local

add the following lines, anywhere above exit=0:

Code:

# correctly load the broadcom wireless drivers
rmmod b44 ssb
modprobe wl
modprobe b44

save and exit.

I no longer have the old laptop, so I can't test if this is still necessary.

[canezila]

This worked great for 3.01.  I have not got 4.0 to work yet following the above instructions.  Does anyone know what may be different and what to try next?

Thanks!

[trulan]

For one thing, the edits to rc.local are no longer necessary for me (except maybe modprobe wl).  That may be due either to a newer version of the drivers or due to the fact that my new laptop doesn't call the ssb module anymore.

Is it failing to build the module, or is the module failing to load?  If you could post some error messages that might be helpful too.

[canezila]

trulan,

Very glad to see you here.  I have faith it will work now! 

It seems to build everything fine.  But after rebooting and modprobing... and changing the wireless name to wlan0, wlan1, eth1, eth2, eth3 .... nothing changed the wifi light.  So I will have to go back and get some detailed information for you.   

[canezila]

OK.  I am not sure of the exact fix.. but I think it was not a fix... but rather a slipup and fix on my end. 

First, and probably not it, I removed the rc.local edit.

rebooted

Second, I changed the wireless to eth2.  My problem was that when I first installed AV_4, I had an eth-usb adapter plugged into my usb-hub out_of_sight.  It just changed the order of devices and I found it this time... BUT the one unanswered question is: Why did it not work the first time that I tried this eth2?  But I really dont care to pursue it unless there is some other reason that might help someone else... but on my end, I am very happy it is working again!!  Now I have the perfect netbook OS. 

[trulan]

Glad it's working!

The rc.local edits are only necessary if your system likes to call the ssb module, which can be rather obstinate about being removed apparently.  My old laptop used the b44 module for the ethernet card, and the b44 module seems to insist on calling the ssb module even though it doesn't seem to actually need it.  On my new laptop the tg3 module is used for ethernet and ssb is never called, so no need to manually reload the modules like I have been doing.

Sorry for rambling...

[pgreenwood]

Is this approach still recommended for 5.0.3? I tried to follow it and module-assistant reported that the build failed.

I followed the directions from BlogFranz http://blogfranz.blogspot.com/2009/06/netbook-broadcom-43xx-cards-with-debian.html in 2009 to successfully build the module in Lenny (2.6.30) and get the wireless to work.

Thanks

[trulan]

Since the 3.0 kernel, the b43 wireless drivers work better for me than the wl driver, so I haven't tested this lately.  The first red flag I see in the guide is using the sid repos for the driver source - this is a bad idea in the AVLinux 5 series.  I'll have to dig into it deeper when I have time.

But module-assistant should still be able to build the wl driver, I use module-assistant regularly for the virtualbox modules, which is a very similar process.

[pgreenwood]

Thanks, trulan. I will take another run at this with your comments in mind and report back

[pgreenwood]

Thanks, trulan. I will take another run at this with your comments in mind and report back

After much poking around I Googled lsmod broadcom lpphy and found this note at Crunchbang Linux Forum.
http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/topic/17112/dell-vostro-1710-broadcom-bcm4312-lpphy-working/

Code:

aptitude install firmware-b43-lpphy-installer

modprobe -r b43

echo options b43 pio=1 qos=0 >> /etc/modprobe.d/local.conf

modprobe b43

Earlier, installation of firmware-b43-lpphy-installer via synaptic finished without error, so I proceeded to the next three instructions. Immediately my wireless lit up and the AVLinux 5.0.3 announced that a connection to my router was established, and so it is!

What does the modification I made to /etc/modprobe.d/local.conf mean? Thanks.

[trulan]

What you did is disable dma mode and force the wireless chip into pio mode.  This is fine for browsing the web and downloading stuff, but for more demanding networking applications it will be very slow.  I've been able to get mine to work without that modprobe line on the 3.0 kernels, though if I use a 2.6.39 kernel, or a 3.2 or newer kernel, I need to use the modprobe line to get wireless to work.  I have not used the broadcom-sta drivers in a long time.

[pgreenwood]

I commented out

Code:

options b43 pio=1 qos=0

Code:

insmod -r b43

and then

Code:

insmod b43

The connection seems to work OK without pio. Thanks again!