On Sun, 11 Dec 2005 13:57:16 +0100, Jan Krumsiek wrote:
> Hello.
>
> I'm currently trying to setup wireless network on my Averatec 3200
> notebook with Fedora Core 4. It has a Broadcom 802.11g onboard chipset
> which is not nativly supported by the operating system. Thus I used
> ndiswrapper with the windows drivers for this chipset. I did the
> following steps:
>
> - installed package with kernel sources - downloaded & compiled
> ndiswrapper
> - ran ndiswrapper -i INFFILE where INFFILE was the driver name, i
> tried various Windows XP and 2000 drivers I found on the Averatec
> homepage and here
> http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/m...index.php/List (BCM4306
> 802.11g (rev 3) ).
> - modprobe ndiswrapper
> - ndiswrapper -m
>
> Then I used the FC4 network setup tool to set all WLAN Data (WEP key,
> network mode etc.)
>
> Unfortunately the notebook is not able to connect the WLAN, when
> restarting the network it prints "Obtaining IP .... FAILED. No link
> detected! Check cable?".
> But the notebook seems to find at least something, "iwlist wlan0 scan"
> shows my WLAN (Quality 0/100).
>
>
> What could be wrong? Is this a matter of hardware and drivers or of my
> WLAN settings? I administer the access point. Any ideas?
>
> Regards,
> Jan
Let me first state that I am no pro at this. But I can tell you that I
have spent a lot of time addressing the same WLAN issues with my laptop.
It took me a while to figure out how to get the Broadcom built-in WLAN to
work on my Acer Aspire 3002LCi with FC4. But after a lot of research and
trial & error, I did manage to get things to work correctly.
First let me point out that I never got my WLAN to activate upon boot-up.
What I do is run a WLAN startup batch file (as 'root') whenever I need to
access my WLAN. Personally I like this situation much better, as I can
activate the WLAN only when I need it & I have separate startup files for
each different WLAN that I need to connect to.
Also below you will find the URL to my FC4 write-up, which was recently
submitted to "linux-on-laptops.com".
http://www.hoflink.com/~turajb/linux_acer3k2_fc4.htm
I recommend that you read my write-up, as it may contain a few tidbits of
useful info you may be able to use to get your Broadcom WLAN to work (at
least the WLAN startup batch file should be useful, & maybe the kernel
params as well...)
Also there were several important things that I learned while setting up
FC4 on my laptop. I have no reason to believe that your laptop would be
any different. They are listed no particular order.
1 - make sure you are up to date with the most current FC4 RPMs & kernel,
before you start to setup your WLAN... I know this doesn't sound like
much, but I found that things worked better & were much more stable after
doing it. In my FC4 write-up, I noted which RPM repositories I used.
2 - you should be able to use the stock FC4 kernels with the ndiswrapper &
your Broadcom WLAN internal card, without experiencing any crashes. (but
only after you updated your RPMs; as the default kernel from the initial
FC4 install gave me too many problems...)
3 - you will need to recompile/install the ndiswrapper after you have
rebooted your laptop due to getting a new kernel from YUM, APT or UP2DATE.
However you will not need to reinstall the Windows XP driver. Just
recompile, install & then run the WLAN startup file to activate the WLAN.
4 - one of the most important things I found with the ndiswrapper is that
you must follow their instructions very carefully. There is one part where
you need to figure out your Broadcom WLAN card's PCI ID & which driver to
use. If you messed this one up, uninstall the driver you installed & the
ndiswrapper. Then reinstall the ndiswrapper, with the correct Windows XP
driver.
The "ndiswrapper -l" command will at least tell you weather you got the
right driver or not. If you see 'driver present' and 'hardware present'
on the same line, then you have the correct driver installed.
5 - Make sure you use the ndiswrapper wiki for how to properly install
ndiswrapper. It is very clearly documented, and shows you what you should
see at each important step.
You can find the ndiswrapper wiki here:
http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/m...p/Installation
6 - it may be trivial, but check to make sure your WLAN router/access
point is configured correctly & works. Do this by connecting to the
internet with it from another laptop or a different OS (such as windows
XP). I had the access restrictions (including MAC access filtering)
wrong on my access point in the beginning & that really drove me nuts
trying to figure out why my FC4 laptop would not connect to it.
If you only have 1 laptop/wireless device to test with (like I do), I
would say, start with leaving the access point open (no MAC address
filtering. no WEP/WPA encryption, and leave the ESSID broadcast on) &
enabled DHCP fory our WLAN. That will give your FC4 laptop the best chance
at seeing and maybe connecting to it. Once you have connected to it, and
verified that you can actually reach the internet. Then you can slowly
raise your WLAN router/access point security settings to better protect
your wireless network.
7 - some laptops have a WLAN button which needs to be pressed (at the time
of boot-up or at the time the hardware is activated) for it to work with
FC4. My Acer laptop has such a button, but I found through trial & error
that it does not need to be pressed, as the WLAN startup file does this
for me. However your model laptop need require you to hit your WLAN
button when activating your Broadcom WLAN internal card.
8 - Lastly, look at "http://www.linux-on-laptops.com" and see if your
model laptop or at at least a similar module is listed. It may
contain special kernel parameters that need to add for your WLAN to work
in Linux. That is how I found out about the kernel params I needed for my
model laptop.
I hope this helps...
James
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