[CentOS] Broadcom Wifi Problem

Mon Sep 5 22:49:11 UTC 2011
Milos Blazevic <milos.blazevic at sbb.rs>

Michael D. Berger wrote:
> On Mon, 05 Sep 2011 16:54:59 -0400, b.j. mcclure wrote:
> [...]
>   
>> Your firmware appears to be installed and the wl driver you compiled
>> appears to be loaded.  If the driver and firmware are compatible then I
>> would check that Network Manager is running and Networking and Wireless
>> Networking are enabled in the NM applet.  Network Manager should create
>> an auto-<ssid_of_accesspoint> configuration file in 
>> /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts.
>>
>> If that all looks o.k. I'll have to pass the baton to someone that may
>> have experience with your driver.
>>
>> The stock driver (b43) does work on my machine although on some routers
>> dhcp does not work and I have had to configure a static IP to get a
>> connection.  ymmv.
>>
>> B.J.
>>
>> CentOS Linux release 6.0 (Final)
>>     
>
> My NetworkManager doesn't work (that's another problem, but low
> priority), and it is my intention to use wpa_supplicant and dhclient
> from the command line.  But obviously, if I can't see anything
> with ifconfig, I can't do that. ifconfig did work before I
> made the changes.  With regard do compatibility between the firmware
> and the driver, I could not say.  Maybe that is the problem.
>
> Thanks for your help.
> Mike.
>
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>   
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


-- 
*Kind regards,*
*Milos Blazevic*

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