[CentOS] Broadcom Wifi Problem

[James A. Peltier]

----- Original Message -----
| On Tue, 06 Sep 2011 00:49:11 +0200, Milos Blazevic wrote:
| [...]
| > Mike,
| >
| > from what I can see in one of your earlier e-mails, you appear to be
| > dealing with BCM4311, which is in my experience one of least
| > problematic
| > - worked out of the box on CentOS 6, however, ymmv. Anyway, it would
| > be
| > useful if we could see the output of:
| >
| > lspci -nn
| >
| > just to confirm the exact Broadcom chip.
| >
| > Now, the manual at CentOS wiki used to be sufficent to make the WiFi
| > work (as eth1 or wlan0, regardless - although I always configured it
| > as
| > eth1), sadly, this is not entirely true anymore. To be more precise,
| > the
| > latest driver from Broadcom site doesn't work at all on CentOS 5
| > (tested
| > it not a month ago with BCM4311). So, in order to avoid paying to
| > DriverGuide.com, I can either send you a older version of a driver,
| > or
| > you can download one from here:
| >
| > https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/maverick/+source/broadcom-sta/5.10.91.9.3-3
| >
| > (I haven't tested the latter), and go through the installation
| > manual
| > step by step. I haven't read Gytis' manual, but it should work in
| > pretty
| > much the same was as the one on CentOS Broadcom Wiki - as he
| > contributed
| > to the Wiki :-)
| >
| > Hopefully, I'll perform some more testing soon and remedy obsoleted
| > parts of the Wiki page as soon as the time permits.
| >
| >
| > P.S:
| > And yes, you should leave NetworkManger manage your network
| > connections
| > for start, and stop meddling with wpa_supplicant and manual wireless
| > configuration - it'll save you time and nervs. So, just run:
| >
| > service network stop
| > service NetworkManager start
| > chkconfig network off
| > chkconfig NetworkManager on
| 
| Downloading from the location that you suggest (which is an Ubunto
| location), I got:
| broadcom-sta_5.10.91.9.3.orig.tar.gz
| and running it:
| 
| # pwd
| /root/broadcom/driver/broadcom-sta/i386
| # make
| KBUILD_NOPEDANTIC=1 make -C /lib/modules/`uname -r`/build M=`pwd`
| make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/src/kernels/2.6.32-71.29.1.el6.i686'
| LD /root/broadcom/driver/broadcom-sta/i386/built-in.o
| CC [M] /root/broadcom/driver/broadcom-sta/i386/src/wl/sys/wl_linux.o
| /root/broadcom/driver/broadcom-sta/i386/src/wl/sys/wl_linux.c: In
| function ‘wl_free’:
| /root/broadcom/driver/broadcom-sta/i386/src/wl/sys/wl_linux.c:705:
| error:
| implicit declaration of function ‘schedule’
| make[2]: *** [/root/broadcom/driver/broadcom-sta/i386/src/wl/sys/
| wl_linux.o] Error 1
| make[1]: *** [_module_/root/broadcom/driver/broadcom-sta/i386] Error 2
| make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/kernels/2.6.32-71.29.1.el6.i686'
| make: *** [all] Error 2
| 
| So what is this ‘schedule’ thing?
| 
| Thanks,
| Mike.
| 
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You can use the rpmforge version or compile it yourself.  I've used this one with success using the details described earlier.

http://www.broadcom.com/support/802.11/linux_sta.php


I did however have to patch it with

http://www.broadcom.com/docs/linux_sta/5_100_82_38.patch

the driver built and installed fine.  In fact, I'm using it on my laptop as we speak.

-- 
James A. Peltier
IT Services - Research Computing Group
Simon Fraser University - Burnaby Campus
Phone   : 778-782-6573
Fax     : 778-782-3045
E-Mail  : jpeltier at sfu.ca
Website : http://www.sfu.ca/itservices
          http://blogs.sfu.ca/people/jpeltier
I will do the best I can with the talent I have