bcm4318 - Can It Work with Newer Kernels?

John W. Linville linville at redhat.com
Wed Nov 21 18:36:43 UTC 2007


On Wed, Nov 21, 2007 at 11:05:29AM -0500, Rick Bilonick wrote:
> On Wed, 2007-11-21 at 10:50 -0500, John W. Linville wrote:
> 
> > One or both of us is confused...
> > 
> > If you are using ndiswrapper, then it does not matter what (if
> > anything) you have in /lib/firmware.  I can offer you no support
> > with ndiswrapper.

> uname -r shows:
> 
> 2.6.20-1.2962.fc6
> 
> This is the "old" kernel where ndiswrapper works. When I upgraded to a
> newer (and all newer) F6 kernels, ndiswrapper no longer works. First I
> received error messages about mismatched versions of iwlist (or
> wireliess tools). I've installed at least 5 newer kernels (keeping the
> one that the wireless works). I don't get the original error message but
> then started to get messages about firmware. (ndiswrapper was updated to
> the latest version - I expected everything to continue working after
> updating the kernels and other files). 
> 
> Will ndiswrapper work with the version 3 firmware under F8?

Again, ndiswrapper doesn't use /lib/firmware.  Those messages are not
coming from ndiswrapper.  Please forget about ndiswrapper unless/until
you have actually tried using b43 on an F7, F8, or Rawhide kernel.

The b43 driver requires version 4 firmware.  Using an F8 kernel,
the firmware needs to be extracted with b43-fwcutter.

Once you install or upgrade to F8, the easiest method I can offer
you to get this working is to download and install this package:

	http://fedora.tuxdriver.com/rfc/b43-firmware-download-351.126-1.fc8.noarch.rpm

Then you will need to establish a wired connection to the Internet.
Afterwards you can either reboot (presuming your wired configuration
was configured with system-config-network) or run the following command
(as root):

	b43-firmware-download

I'm sorry, but I can't be confident that even the latest FC6 kernels
will support your card.  I also doubt that the rpm above will work
on anything earlier than at least F7.  Your best bet to get your
4318 working is to use a modern Fedora installation.  If your 4318
doesn't work with the stock F8 kernels then you can always fall back
on ndiswrapper, which I presume will still work (although I cannot
support it).

John
-- 
John W. Linville
linville at redhat.com




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