bcm43xx steps on ndiswrapper

[Steven Haigh]

Quoting James <jdickson at cimtel.net>:
> Thanks.. I would love to use the bcm43xx module but it is flaky at best
> on my Dell Latitude D800.. ndiswrapper works really well.

I have the same on my Inspiron 8600. The rest of the machine works  
great, and it's a damn good linux laptop now (compared to when it  
first came out!) and the wifi is the only thing that lets it down.  
Using NDISwrapper at least lets me use the wifi card!

> I did blacklist the bcm43xx module as Patrick suggested but not the
> iee80211* stuff. I assumed without the bcm43xx loaded the others would
> not load. I am not at  a place to test it but I will let you know my
> results.

I added bcm43xx and it's family to /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist and it  
does exactly as expected. I installed ndiswrapper again today, and  
it's all good so far.

> My research on using the bcm43xx module has affirmed my own experiences
> and successes are limited.

Yeah - About the only success I've had so far with FC6/rawhide is to  
hang the machine, or make the wifi card do nothing much at all :) I  
jumped on freenode and had a chat to some of the guys in #bcm-users I  
think it was, and apparently it's much better with the newer  
wireless-2.6 kernels, however I think the chances of getting them  
merged into rawhide is pretty much zero at this stage.

> You guys are great. I love the debate and dialog.

Yeah, it's always an entertaining read :)

-- 
Steven Haigh

Email: netwiz at crc.id.au
Web: http://www.crc.id.au
Phone: (03) 9017 0597 - 0412 935 897