[Solved] broadcom wireless on 1.2-RC2

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justwantin
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[Solved] broadcom wireless on 1.2-RC2

Post#1 by justwantin » 14 May 2012, 10:12

I had been using 1.1 on an Acer Aspire One 751h. The broadcom wireless (b43) worked without any problem. first time I tried to get a connection to my home lan
This is not the case with 1.2-RC2 and dmesg tells me that there is a firmware missmatch.

Code: Select all

b43-phy0 ERROR: Firmware file "b43-open/ucode15.fw not found
There is a /lib/firmware/b43-open/ucode5.fw. Any suggestions? I don't mind trouble shooting this but I don't know where to start. :unknown:

20 minutes later:
When I try the XFCE 1.2-RC1 I get a different error: I am told my firmware is too new and that support for firmware598 and up requires kernel 3.2 or newer and I have to either install older firmware or upgrade the kernel.

Just out of curiosity I'm downloading 1.1 just to see if that version,s wireless will still work on this netbook.
Last edited by justwantin on 15 May 2012, 10:23, edited 1 time in total.

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fanthom
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Re: broadcom wireless on 1.2-RC2

Post#2 by fanthom » 14 May 2012, 11:31

hello justwantin,

Please refer to our broadcom HOWTO:
link

i have just updated it with a link to another HOWTO which explains how to extract non-free firmware from broadcom-sta driver using b43-fwcutter.
we are allowed to ship only open source b43 firmware which supports limited number of chipsets.
Anyway - this shouldn't be a problem as broadcom-sta covers majority of cards out there.
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justwantin
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Re: broadcom wireless on 1.2-RC2

Post#3 by justwantin » 14 May 2012, 19:09

Thanks fanthom
I'll have a look. I thought perhaps there was something omitted with kernel upgrades in rc 1 and 2 and also because ucode15.fw shipped with 1.1 and the wireless worked.
Much later after reading the how to:
Before Porteus I had Salix 13.37 installed on the netbook and had the wireless working using the broadcom-sta driver compiled from a slackbuild from slackbuilds.org. If rc2 comes with broadcom-sta then I'm not sure what the problem is. I just had a TP-Link usb wireless dongle plugged in and was able to get a wireless connection so wireless is possible just not with the onboard broadcom chip. Interestingly when I was connected with the TP-Link dongle there was no wireless LED lit up. The wireless led does light up in Porteus-1.1 when there is a wireless connection.

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Re: broadcom wireless on 1.2-RC2

Post#4 by fanthom » 15 May 2012, 06:26

just checked and looks like i have forgotten to blacklist b43 driver in 32bit kernel.

please remaster 000-kernel.xzm or add b43_blacklist.conf to /porteus/rootcopy/etc/modprobe.d folder with following content:

Code: Select all

blacklist b43
blacklist b43legacy
blacklist bcma
blacklist ssb
should be ok after reboot.
Thanks for reporting.
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justwantin
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[Solved] broadcom wireless on 1.2-RC2

Post#5 by justwantin » 15 May 2012, 10:21

Thanks fanthom,
That worked just fine including the wireless led indicator. I've repartitioned this netbook and am itching to do another frugal install of Porteus on it. With wireless working its time to go chase up Ahau's Xfce-4.10 modules and have a go with them on rc-2

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