one more time -- broadcom wireless on f7

[Robert P. J. Day]

On Tue, 14 Aug 2007, Timothy Murphy wrote:

> Robert P. J. Day wrote:
>
> >   at the risk of belabouring this issue (and i'm sure it's way too
> > late to be worried about that *now* :-), i'm still interested in
> > whether there's a known, reliable and deterministic way to get
> > wireless working on f7 (and, additionally, f8t1) on my laptop which
> > has a broadcom 4318 chip.
>
> >   seriously, if wireless is really this much of a hassle, fedora is in
> > for a rough ride.
>
> It isn't "wireless" that is the problem, it is your particular
> wireless card. Many people (including me) using wireless all the
> time with Fedora-7, without meeting any problems.

i understand the distinction but, given the prevalence of broadcom
chips out there, if someone buys a system with one of those chips and
they can't get their wireless to work with f7 (or f8, it appears),
they're not going to be mollified by being told, "oh, that's not a
fedora problem, that's a broadcom problem."  all they'll appreciate is
that wireless that worked just fine if they were running windows no
longer works.  and they're going to be decidedly unhappy.  and fedora
is going to look bad.

(p.s.  BTW, when i upgraded to f7, the pcmcia linksys card on my
inspiron also stopped working.  so it's more than just broadcom.)

> If I had your problem, I would
> (a) get a PCMCIA WiFi card for temporary use,

that's the kind of "solution" that won't go down well in the corporate
world.

> (b) ask if there is anyone successfully using your particular card
> with Fedora-7, and
> (c) if you find someone ask them privately exactly what their setup is.

that was the very reason for my post -- describing my setup and asking
if anyone had a tried and true way to get this to work.

> Incidentally, I've said before and people have strongly disagreed
> with me, but if you have WiFi problems I think it is best to turn of
> NetworkManager, if you are running it, as it simply makes it more
> difficult to diagnose the problem.

in other words, "if that doesn't work, try ...".    exactly the kind
of advice i was hoping to avoid.

seriously, if you have the same setup i have, and you have a reliable
way to get wireless to work on f7/f8t1, by all means, drop me a note
offline and let me know what magic you used.  but, please, no notes
along the lines of "well, you might want to try *this* ..."  i've
"tried" a number of alleged solution -- now i'm ready for one that
simply works.  why is that such an unreasonable request?

rday
-- 
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Robert P. J. Day
Linux Consulting, Training and Annoying Kernel Pedantry
Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA

http://fsdev.net/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page
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