b43-fwcutter and b43-firmware

[pwatk]

I don't have a Broadcom based wifi card any more so I cannot test this but I'm posting my SLKBUILDs for the b43-fwcutter and b43-firmware to hopefully fix justwantin's wifi issues. Any feedback to help improve the these packages would be greatly appreciated.

If it doesn't work either try the other version of the firmware or the broadcom-sta driver

Code: Select all

...
# Note: If you have a device with a low-power PHY (LP-PHY) e.g. BCM4312
#       use version 4.178.10.4 else use version 4.150.10.5.
...

The b43-fwcutter package is now included in the repository with a script to install the b43-firmware package for you. See here for more information.

[zAchAry]

Well, first of all: thank you, pwatk, for your care by posting this post

according to: wirelessdetector.sh
http://www.linlap.com/utilities/wirelessdetector.sh
http://www.linlap.com/wiki/Linux+Wirele ... t+Detector

my driver is: BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN [14e4:4311]

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etf[~]$ wirelessdetector.sh
Linux Wireless Chipset Detector - V1.1
Copyright 2008 Bill Giannikos

For best results you should ensure you have the latest version of this utility from:
http://www.linlap.com/wiki/Linux+Wireless+Chipset+Detector

Scanning for PCI Cards...
Found - Broadcom Corporation BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN [14e4:4311]

Scanning for USB Cards...


etf[~]$

dang! I'm searching for VirtualBox to look on the bash script from Ubuntu 8.10... I need to configure the repos... (I'm working on it)

[pwatk]

As far as I can tell your card should work with this firmware. That said you never can tell with Broadcom kit.

If all else fails you might need to try ndiswrapper instead.

[zAchAry]

from a debian (Ubuntu 8.10) package

Common

b43-fwcutter
Utility for extracting Broadcom 43xx firmware

Installed Files

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/.
/usr
/usr/bin
/usr/bin/b43-fwcutter
/usr/share
/usr/share/b43-fwcutter
/usr/share/b43-fwcutter/install_bcm43xx_firmware.sh
/usr/share/doc
/usr/share/doc/b43-fwcutter
/usr/share/doc/b43-fwcutter/README
/usr/share/doc/b43-fwcutter/README.Debian
/usr/share/doc/b43-fwcutter/copyright
/usr/share/doc/b43-fwcutter/changelog.Debian.gz
/usr/share/man
/usr/share/man/man1
/usr/share/man/man1/b43-fwcutter.1.gz

Description

Utility for extracting Broadcom 43xx firmware
fwcutter is a tool which can extract firmware from various source files.
It's written for BCM43xx driver files.

/usr/share/b43-fwcutter/install_bcm43xx_firmware.sh

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh

set -e

dir=$(mktemp -d)
cd "$dir"
wget http://downloads.openwrt.org/sources/wl_apsta-3.130.20.0.o
wget http://mirror2.openwrt.org/sources/broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5.tar.bz2
b43-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware wl_apsta-3.130.20.0.o
tar xjf broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5.tar.bz2
b43-fwcutter --unsupported -w /lib/firmware broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5/driver/wl_apsta_mimo.o
rm -rf "$dir"
chmod o+rx /lib/firmware/b43 /lib/firmware/b43legacy

I used the bash script and the driver worked fine (unlike jokey)

[pwatk]

I assumed I'd picked the correct firmware because of this:

You are using the b43 driver with an LP-PHY card (e.g. BCM4312)

Follow these instructions if you are using the b43 driver from linux-2.6.32 and newer or compat-wireless-2.6, or from any current GIT tree, and have a device with a low-power PHY.

Install b43-fwcutter, then use version 4.174.64.19 of Broadcom's proprietary driver. (The tarball is mislabeled as "4.178.10.4", but it is actually 4.174.64.19.)

I've updated the script so the user can choose which version to cut.

[zAchAry]

It works great for me, so far, even the lights/signals of the wireless light on the physical computer machine are working exactly, as far as I remember, as was on Windows Vista, long long time ago... as you can see, I used an older version of the driver (which worked a little bit differently)

Thank you very much, pwatk, for your efforts in this forum.

[pwatk]

Not a problem (so long as I pick the right firmware) .

When Salix goes current, AFAIK it isn't at the moment, I'll probably start thinking about submitting some of the other packages for inclusion (this package is obviously encumbered).

[pwatk]

Updated.

[zAchAry]

What the update is?
My driver works fine, should I update it?
Can you post it in the repository?

[pwatk]

Sorry, I should be less vague.

Because I'm posting packages for b43 and broadcom-sta I decided to add to the scripts so if you install one it blacklists the other (amongst other things).

At the minute that includes adding and commenting out lines in the /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist and /etc/rc.d/rc.modules.

I'm considering changing it because, in hindsight, this could get messy. I might just have it add and delete conflicting lines and remove the comments. This will make the script cleaner and (if I get this right) the average user wont need additional comments in those files.