Question

Wireless not working with openSuse 11.1

Asked by: W1lJam35

Just installed openSuse 11.1 on my Dell D630 laptop. I can't get the broadcom 4311 wireless adapter to respond. It works just fine when I boot it to Windows. I have included the output from several utilities to document the configuration.

Dmesg output:
...
b43-phy0: Broadcom 4311 WLAN found
phy0: Selected rate control algorithm 'pid'
cs: IO port probe 0x100-0x3af: clean.
cs: IO port probe 0x3e0-0x4ff: clean.
cs: IO port probe 0x820-0x8ff: clean.
cs: IO port probe 0xc00-0xcf7: clean.
cs: IO port probe 0xa00-0xaff: clean.
Broadcom 43xx driver loaded [ Features: PMLR, Firmware-ID: FW13 ]
...

A regular ifconfig does not display anything for wlan0 but here is the output from ifconfig -a
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:1C:23:27:DA:54  
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
          Interrupt:17

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:18 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:18 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:1060 (1.0 Kb)  TX bytes:1060 (1.0 Kb)

pan0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 2A:4E:96:C1:C3:AE  
          BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)

wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:1F:3A:0E:5E:FD  
          BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)

wmaster0  Link encap:UNSPEC  HWaddr 00-1F-3A-0E-5E-FD-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00  
          BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)

This is the output from an ifconfig wlan0 up command:
SIOCSIFFLAGS: No such file or directory

Last, but not least, here is the output of an iwconfig command:
wlan0     IEEE 802.11bg  ESSID:""  
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.412 GHz  Access Point: Not-Associated  
          Tx-Power=0 dBm  
          Retry min limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr=2352 B  
          Encryption key:A62D-3240-F0   Security mode:open
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality:0  Signal level:0  Noise level:0
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

Also, an "iwlist scan" yields "unsupported. Network is down." after the wlan0 entry.

Any help would be appreciated. I've just about given up on Suse but I'm afraid I'll have similar problems with Ubuntu. Thanks.

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Asked On
2008-12-20 at 13:52:07ID24000951
Tags

openSuse Suse wireless broadcom linux

Topics

Wireless Technologies

,

Linux Networking

,

Wireless Local Area Network

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Answers

 

by: W1lJam35Posted on 2008-12-22 at 11:24:43ID: 23228831

I installed Ubuntu 8.10. over Suse. I had the same problem but Ubuntu detected a problem and offered to load proprietary drivers which fixed the problem immediately. So for those of you running Suse or Fedora (which I also tried, in vain) see if you can install the proprietary drivers. Good luck.

 

by: TwellonsPosted on 2008-12-22 at 11:33:18ID: 23228899

I meant to come back here to mention this ....  

In previous Versions using Ndiswrapper was necessary , in  OpenSuse11.0   The B43 and B43 Legacy drivers could be installed via packman repositories (search for B43 in package managment)

  I was unable to find them for 11.1 in repo's.

I did however find that the  

sudo /usr/sbin/install_bcm43xx_firmware

works.

This will install the Broadcom firmware for several of the older Broadcom cards ... Mine is the 4309.

Hope this helps if you hadn't already solved it.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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