b43 driver, firmware and kernel 2.6.23-0.135.rc3.git7.fc8

[Dino Leonardo Sangoi]

Hi,

After updating today to kernel 2.6.23-0.135.rc3.git7.fc8, my BCM
wireless card broke (again). The previous kernel
(2.6.23-0.129.rc3.git4.fc8) worked well.

This time the problem was easy to find: in dmesg I got:

Aug 25 17:41:42 sixtyfour kernel: b43-phy0 ERROR: Firmware file "b43/ucode5.fw" not found or load failed. Aug 25 17:41:42 sixtyfour kernel: b43-phy0 ERROR: You must go to http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/bcm43xx#devicefirmware and download the correct firmware (version 4). 

Despite the helpful message, the problem was not getting a driver, but
being able to cut the firmware: the bcm43xx-fwcutter tool doesn't work
with this new b43 version.

Googling a bit I found that fwcutter changed: now 'b43-fwcutter' is
needed. 

It doesn't seems to be a b43-fwcutter in rawhide repositories:

# yum list '*b43*'
Error: No matching Packages to list
# yum list '*fwcutter*'
Installed Packages
bcm43xx-fwcutter.i386                    006-3.fc8                 installed       
#

Getting the tarball (If anybody else needs it, you can get it at
http://prdownload.berlios.de/bcm43xx/b43-fwcutter-008.tar.bz2) worked,
and now I'm using the latest-and-greatest kernel.

Maybe a nicer way to handle these changes would be delivering the
needed package to the repositories, sending a heads-up to Fedora
testers list, and then changing the kernel.

Dino.
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