After hours of trawling and sorting through the vast amount of information regarding this topic, I've finally managed to install my wireless card and get it working! First of all, some specs:
- lspci dermined the card to be: Broadcom Corporation BCM94311MCG WLAN Mini-PCI (rev 01) It is an 802.11 b/g WLAN
- PCI ID is 14e4:4311
- Laptop is Compaq Presario v3252AU running on AMD Turion 63 X2 and nVidia chipset
Two important things to do. Configure the driver from the kernel AND install the firmware with bcm43xx-fwcutter.
1. Using the driver provided by the kernel. Ndiswrapper is not needed. Configure the kernel to enable Generic IEEE 802.11 Networking Stack and the Software Mac add-on. This is important, because if the Software Mac is not included, the Broadcom driver will not be displayed in the kernel.
Networking --> [*] Networking support
Networking options --->
[ ] Amateur Radio support --->
< > IrDA (infrared) subsystem support --->
< > Bluetooth subsystem support --->
<*> Generic IEEE 802.11 Networking Stack
[ ] Enable full debugging output (NEW)
--- IEEE 802.11 WEP encryption (802.1x)
<*> IEEE 802.11i CCMP support
<*> IEEE 802.11i TKIP encryption
<*> Software MAC add-on to the IEEE 802.11 networking stack
[ ] Enable full debugging output
After that, check the Broadcom driver:
Device Drivers --> Network device support -->
Wireless LAN drivers (non-hamradio) & Wireless Extensions
<M> Broadcom BCM43xx wireless support
[ ] Broadcom BCM43xx debugging (RECOMMENDED)
(I'll update this part later. Not on my AMD com right now. So I am not sure if the display is the correct kernel configuration)
No 1 not finished.
2. After configuring the kernel to get bcm43xx loaded as module, install bcm43xx-fwcutter. We need to install the firmware using bcm43xx-fwcutter to make it work.
$ emerge bcm43xx-fwcutter (have to add net-wireless/bcm43xx-fwcutter ~amd64 to /etc/portage/package.keywords)
3. Installing the firmware
a. Get firmware from http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/bcm43xx
The file is called wl_apsta.o
b. mkdir /lib/firmware
c. bcm43xx-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware /path/to/wherever_you_saved_the_firmware
- Either udev or hotplug is needed to load the firmware.
4. modprobe bcm43xx
Note:
1. The wireless toggle button and LED actually work. If I toggle the button to 'on', the LED changes from amber to blue when the module is loaded. If button is 'off', module loaded, card detected, but naturally the interface cannot detect any access point. I can also switch off the wireless using the button AFTER the interface has been detected. The only thing I cannot do, is to toggle the button to 'on' after booting and expect the interface to activate automatically. I have to reload the module again then, I think. Or restart net.eth1. I have to check which.
2. To do: Try to set up the wireless configuration. At the moment, very confused regarding iwconfig and wpa_supplicant.
- lspci dermined the card to be: Broadcom Corporation BCM94311MCG WLAN Mini-PCI (rev 01) It is an 802.11 b/g WLAN
- PCI ID is 14e4:4311
- Laptop is Compaq Presario v3252AU running on AMD Turion 63 X2 and nVidia chipset
Two important things to do. Configure the driver from the kernel AND install the firmware with bcm43xx-fwcutter.
1. Using the driver provided by the kernel. Ndiswrapper is not needed. Configure the kernel to enable Generic IEEE 802.11 Networking Stack and the Software Mac add-on. This is important, because if the Software Mac is not included, the Broadcom driver will not be displayed in the kernel.
Networking --> [*] Networking support
Networking options --->
[ ] Amateur Radio support --->
< > IrDA (infrared) subsystem support --->
< > Bluetooth subsystem support --->
<*> Generic IEEE 802.11 Networking Stack
[ ] Enable full debugging output (NEW)
--- IEEE 802.11 WEP encryption (802.1x)
<*> IEEE 802.11i CCMP support
<*> IEEE 802.11i TKIP encryption
<*> Software MAC add-on to the IEEE 802.11 networking stack
[ ] Enable full debugging output
After that, check the Broadcom driver:
Device Drivers --> Network device support -->
Wireless LAN drivers (non-hamradio) & Wireless Extensions
<M> Broadcom BCM43xx wireless support
[ ] Broadcom BCM43xx debugging (RECOMMENDED)
(I'll update this part later. Not on my AMD com right now. So I am not sure if the display is the correct kernel configuration)
No 1 not finished.
2. After configuring the kernel to get bcm43xx loaded as module, install bcm43xx-fwcutter. We need to install the firmware using bcm43xx-fwcutter to make it work.
$ emerge bcm43xx-fwcutter (have to add net-wireless/bcm43xx-fwcutter ~amd64 to /etc/portage/package.keywords)
3. Installing the firmware
a. Get firmware from http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/bcm43xx
The file is called wl_apsta.o
b. mkdir /lib/firmware
c. bcm43xx-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware /path/to/wherever_you_saved_the_firmware
- Either udev or hotplug is needed to load the firmware.
4. modprobe bcm43xx
Note:
1. The wireless toggle button and LED actually work. If I toggle the button to 'on', the LED changes from amber to blue when the module is loaded. If button is 'off', module loaded, card detected, but naturally the interface cannot detect any access point. I can also switch off the wireless using the button AFTER the interface has been detected. The only thing I cannot do, is to toggle the button to 'on' after booting and expect the interface to activate automatically. I have to reload the module again then, I think. Or restart net.eth1. I have to check which.
2. To do: Try to set up the wireless configuration. At the moment, very confused regarding iwconfig and wpa_supplicant.
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