[CentOS] Problems with Broadcom 4312 wireless
David McGuffey
davidmcguffey at verizon.net
Wed Jul 29 00:53:04 UTC 2009
On Wed, 2009-07-29 at 01:09 +0100, Ned Slider wrote:
> Milos Blazevic wrote:
> >> Message: 27
> >> Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2009 00:31:53 +0100
> >> From: Ned Slider <ned at unixmail.co.uk>
> >> Subject: Re: [CentOS] Problems with Broadcom 4312 wireless
> >> To: CentOS mailing list <centos at centos.org>
> >> Message-ID: <4A6E38E9.1010709 at unixmail.co.uk>
> >> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
> >>
> >> Milos Blazevic wrote:
> >>>> Hello David,
> >>>>
> >>>> In brief, I've solved this problem on my Dell Inspiron 1525 (with
> >>>> Broadcom 4312 wireless card), so I figured letting You know would be
> >>>> nice, 'cause it didn't seem like the issue is resolved.
> >>>>
> >>>> Visit this link:
> >>>> http://jomcode.com/fadhil/?p=59
> >>>>
> >>>> and in addition check out the comment on the same page by Andre Kiepe to
> >>>> have the modules load on boot.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> Best Regards,
> >>>> Milos.
> >>>>
> >> I'm not overly familiar with broadcom wireless (always tried to avoid
> >> it), but we can probably package wl.ko as a kABI-tracking kmod for el5
> >> over at ELRepo.org if you're interested? This would remove the need to
> >> recompile the driver from source for every kernel update, not to mention
> >> provide a user friendly RPM package for yum.
> >>
> >> Also, does this driver require firmware, and if so where does one obtain
> >> that?
> >>
> >>
> >
> > Sure I'm insterested in compiling the driver to RPM and making it
> > available to others.
>
> I was suggesting that I could package it and make it available to the
> community through elrepo.org (a third party repo that specialises in
> backporting drivers for improved hardware support in RHEL/CentOS 5).
>
> > I've tested the driver today (by connecting to the available access
> > point) briefly and it didn't display any problems in functioning.
> > Now, according to the news clipping from computerworld.com, by
> > installing this, one would still use the proprietary Broadcom firmware,
> > which, I suppose, comes along with the driver released by Broadcom at:
> >
> > http://www.broadcom.com/support/802.11/linux_sta.php
> >
>
> I don't see the firmware or know where to get it from, hence why I
> asked. Once I know where to get the required firmware for this driver,
> we can package that too and make it a dependency of the driver package.
>
> > Also, according to the Broadcom's README, all other "firmware kernel
> > modules" have to be removed (or blacklisted) from kernel before
> > installing this.
> >
>
> The blacklisting is probably best done from within the driver package
> and simple enough to do.
>
> The main issue I have with this atm is that I've just read the Broadcom
> license for the binary blob of this driver and I don't much like the
> sound of 2.3(b) below:
>
> 2.3. Restriction on Distribution. Licensee shall only distribute the
> Software (a) under the terms of this Agreement and a copy of this
> Agreement accompanies such distribution, and (b) agrees to defend and
> indemnify Broadcom and its licensors from and against any damages,
> costs, liabilities, settlement amounts and/or expenses (including
> attorneys' fees) incurred in connection with any claim, lawsuit or
> action by any third party that arises or results from the use or
> distribution of any and all Software by the Licensee except as
> contemplated herein.
>
>
> Anyone care to comment on that?
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I should have cleaned this old question up. I solved it by using the
Broadcom hybrid driver and building the module as Milos recommended. I
did not however add the tkip module: modprobe ieee80211_crypt_tkip. I
get excellent WAP, but no WPA or WPA2. Maybe I should finish the
install and test again. :(
Dave M
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