Hello Ljubomir,

thanks a million for your answer. I provided some more info below.

Op 08-11-11 11:59, Ljubomir Ljubojevic schreef:

Vreme: 11/08/2011 07:59 AM, Johan Vermeulen piše:

...

Dear All,

I'm trying to configure wireless card on a Dell Vostro 1540.

I had a look at this site : http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/Laptops/Wireless/Broadcom?action=show

wireless card :# /sbin/lspci | grep Broadcom 12:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4313 802.11b/g/n Wireless LAN Controller (rev 01)

I decided to follow the ELrepo instructions suggested on the site :

                         http://elrepo.org/tiki/wl-kmod

because it would give me a clear and present rpm that I can use on different machines and that will survive kernel updates.

This is good choice many of us recommend as best solution.

Question: This is CentOS 6? i386 or x86_64?

this is centos6 x86_64

...

This all goes down without error messages.

You downloaded appropriate firmware and compiled all of it?

I think so. Exactly as on the site :

http://elrepo.org/tiki/wl-kmod

As it all installed without errors, I thought I had everything.

...

After installing, there is a new entry in /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules :

# PCI device 0x14e4:0x4727 (wl) SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add", DRIVERS=="?*", ATTR{address}=="94:39:e5:dc:3a:cf", ATTR{type}=="1", KERNEL=="eth*", NAME="eth1"

and there is now a blacklist-Broadcom.conf in /etc/modprobe.d/:

blacklist b43 blacklist b43legacy blacklist bcm43xx blacklist ssb

So I think the driver works and the blacklist - issue that is reported on different sites is ok.

What does "iwlist" command give you?

# iwlist Usage: iwlist [interface] scanning [essid NNN] [last] [interface] frequency [interface] channel [interface] bitrate [interface] rate [interface] encryption [interface] keys [interface] power [interface] txpower [interface] retry [interface] ap [interface] accesspoints [interface] peers [interface] event [interface] auth [interface] wpakeys [interface] genie [interface] modulation

that's not good, is it? :-\

Have you installed all other packages needed for wireless?

euh...other packages?

...

I then made an entry in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts:

vi ifcfg-eth1

Change the name to ifcfg-wlan0

did that. do I have to change anything in /etc/udev/rules.d as well?

after reboot I now see a cabeled network ( wlan0) ( disconnected) and an " Auto wlan0 marked as available....

...

DEVICE="eth1"

Change to DEVICE="wlan0"

did that

...

#BOOTPROTO="dhcp" HWADDR="94:39:e5:dc:3a:cf" NM_CONTROLLED="yes" ONBOOT="yes" TYPE=Wireless

Add this:

USERCTL=yes IPV6INIT=no

Why is BOOTPROTO disabled?

I thougt the wireless card requesting an ip adress and then dropping dead might be the problem. Clearly not...

...

*The problem is* I'm not seeing any wireless networks.

<snip>

...

I think I need to configure something else.

wpa-suplicant?

I will look that up.

...

I know a lot of you guys don't like NetworkManager but because it's a laptop I would like to use it.

I hope I gave enough info, any help would be greatly appreciated.

greetings, James.

Centos is here to stay, I'm sure.

P.S. I don't have an English spell checker on this machine, sorry for language mistakes :=)

Do not worry about it, most native speaking English don't bother to write correctly.

thanks again!

greetings, James

On 08/11/11 16:02, Ljubomir Ljubojevic wrote:

Vreme: 11/08/2011 12:46 PM, Johan Vermeulen piše:

...

...

What does "iwlist" command give you?

# iwlist Usage: iwlist [interface] scanning [essid NNN] [last] [interface] frequency [interface] channel [interface] bitrate [interface] rate [interface] encryption [interface] keys [interface] power [interface] txpower [interface] retry [interface] ap [interface] accesspoints [interface] peers [interface] event [interface] auth [interface] wpakeys [interface] genie [interface] modulation

that's not good, is it?:-\

Sorry, run "iwlist wlan0 ap"

Also helpfull are:

ifconfig ip address

Look in their manuals to se how to use them.

...

after reboot I now see a cabeled network ( wlan0) ( disconnected) and an " Auto wlan0 marked as available....

It is strange that Wireless interface is marked cabled. But I do not have ANY experience with Broadcom radios. All I use are Atheros radios.

Try creating "Connect to Hidden Network" connection (or whatever the actual text is) in NetworkManager GUI. You must see be able to set ESSID at other configs. If you do not have it, then something is wrong.

You can also try using the kmod-wl package that I compiled per elrepo instructions: http://rpms.plnet.rs/plnet-centos6-x86_64/RPMS.plnet-compiled/kmod-wl-5_100_...

Maybe this makes a difference, but notice that I never tested it.

If I fail to help you, you will always be able to report a bug:

http://elrepo.org/bugs/main_page.php

,so your problems can be investigated.

I _think_ when one of the elrepo folks tried the latest Broadcom driver source a week or two ago, the driver stopped working for him. No idea if this was el5 or el6, but not a good sign. Apparently it's not that uncommon.

My recommendation is that if you can find a driver version that works for you, hang on to it!

I have no idea if Broadcom keep older version sources available or not. If they would relax their draconian redistribution policies we could do a half way decent job of supporting their drivers, but currently that's not the case.

Ned Slider wrote:

I _think_ when one of the elrepo folks tried the latest Broadcom driver source a week or two ago, the driver stopped working for him. No idea if this was el5 or el6, but not a good sign. Apparently it's not that uncommon.

My recommendation is that if you can find a driver version that works for you, hang on to it!

I have no idea if Broadcom keep older version sources available or not. If they would relax their draconian redistribution policies we could do a half way decent job of supporting their drivers, but currently that's not the case.

---

CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos

Actually, that was me testing the driver (over and over again for the past 6 months)... Sadly, ever since Broadcom released version 5.100.82.38 of the driver (December 2010), no solid evidence has been provided to prove this driver working on RHEL/CentOS 5 to this day - not even after the latest release (Oct 25th, 2011).

The whole issue with the driver can be tracked at the ELRepo bug tracker: http://elrepo.org/bugs/view.php?id=193

As for the original poster is concerned, the only advice I can give, is to download an older driver version from:

http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/multiverse/b/broadcom-sta/broadcom-sta... or http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/multiverse/b/broadcom-sta/broadcom-sta...

and attempt compiling it using the Wiki manual http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/Laptops/Wireless/Broadcom, since ELRepo .src.rpm for rebuilding the kernel independent ABI driver has been provided just a couple of months ago, for a driver which arguably never worked (for me and quite a few other people out there). So, following the manual step by step should get you there, Johan. Also, make sure you use NetworkManager instead of network service with your WiFi - if the driver turns out to be working, this will save you some time and nervs.