Replacing Broadcom miniPCI with Atheros

[Brian Stretch]

Yes, but it only works on 32-bit Linux, as this thread explains:

http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_id=4103096&forum_id=36471

I want to run 64-bit Fedora Core on my Athlon 64 notebook. 

Alan Cox pointed me to where the problem lies (thanks Alan!).  Like IBM,
HP has a whitelist of approved wireless miniPCI cards in their BIOS.  Since
the Atheros card is not on the whitelist and Broadcom's rectal-cranial
inversion shows no sign of correcting, 64-bit Linux users are currently SOL. 
I've got one of HP's research techs looking into this but I'm not very
hopeful.  It's too bad, under Windows the wireless range is very impressive
thanks to the two antenna panels integrated behind the screen.  Does
anyone know whether eMachines has a similar whitelist in their Athlon 64
notebooks?  What about ASUS and Acer, etc?  

-----Original Message-----
From: Steve Fink <stevef at netvantix.com>
Sent: Apr 23, 2004 10:27 AM
To: Brian Stretch <bstretch at mindspring.com>, 
	For testers of Fedora Core development releases <fedora-test-list at redhat.com>
Subject: Re: Replacing Broadcom miniPCI with Atheros

Brian,

I've got the Broadcom 94306 working in RH 9, FC2T2 and SuSE 9.1 using
NDISWrapper (http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net).  It creates a wrapper
and loads the Winblowz native driver for your card.

Works great!

Best,

Steve


On Wed, 2004-04-21 at 10:42, Brian Stretch wrote:
> I have a new HP zv5000z Athlon 64 notebook.  It came with one
> of the hated Linux-hostile Broadcom wireless cards.  I tried swapping
> in an Atheros wireless card, which fits... but the BIOS says:
> 
> "104-Unsupported wireless network device detect"
> 
> and I have to shut down and remove the card to get any futher.  It
> sure looks like HP is deliberately disabling non-HP wireless cards,
> given that explicit message. 
> 
> Yes, I know about the Linuxant wrapper drivers, they only work
> in 32-bit Linux.  I'm running 64-bit Fedora Core Development. 
> 
> Any ideas?  Or am I as SOL as I think I am?  Do all notebooks
> do this?  Does miniPCI just require more BIOS support than
> regular PCI does on desktops? 
> 
> BTW: I have 64-bit Fedora Core Development running on this
> notebook.  FC2 Test 2 didn't work, but I'd expect Test 3 to work
> great.  The zv5000z is very similar ot the Compaq R3000z. 
>