Question regarding bcm43xx driver in FC5 kernels...

[Mike Leahy]

Hello List,

I've been discussing some problems I have with the bcm43xx drivers (for
wireless cards based on the Broadcom 43xx chipsets) on their users list
(bcm43xx-dev at lists.berlios.de).  As you can see from the response to my
latest message below, it appears that the bcm43xx driver being released
with the kernels is not up-to-date.  I have only been able to get my
wireless card working in FC5 by manually deleting the bcm43xx module
from the kernel, then (re)installing ndiswrapper.  As the bcm43xx is
included with every FC5 kernel update, I have to do this procedure
pretty frequently, since I'm generally keeping up with the development
updates.

Larry Finger's reply below suggests that maybe if the latest bcm43xx
source were used, this wouldn't be an issue.  Is this something that
will likely be taken care of in the near future? I think it wouldn't be
a bad thing if this was updated, as there are plenty of people out there
with bcm43xx wireless cards on laptops. If it works out of the box, then
I imagine it will be much easier for laptop users that are dependant on
wireless capability (e.g., myself) to start using FC5 when it is finally
released. I did try to compile the driver myself from the latest source,
but the combination of my lack of experience with the need to reboot
into Windows in order to search/discuss issues lead me to give up on it
after a couple days.

Mike

Larry Finger wrote:
> Mike,
> 
> Mike Leahy wrote:
>>
>> Michael: WRT what was going wrong, all I can say is that the driver
>> appeared to load (e.g., I could get wireless info from the card using
>> iwconfig when the bcm43xx driver was loaded), but any time I tried to
>> modify the wireless card's configuration with iwconfig or scan with
>> iwlist, I would get a message saying the functionality wasn't supported
>> for that card.  Maybe somebody can suggest what I should look for, so
>> that when I get the next kernel update I can try again and give more
>> in-depth info.
>>
>> Thanks again,
>> Mike
> 
> I wonder where Fedora is getting their source. The iwconfig errors you
> report were fixed about a month ago. On my system, WPA started working
> on Jan. 12 and that didn't work until most of the IOCTL links used by
> iwconfig were working.
> 
> As you are obviously in the FC test program, could you inquire where
> they are downloading softmac and bcm43xx code?
> 
> Larry
>