Dell Truemobile 1300 Wireless and Mint 10

[davej99]

I wonder if anyone has succeeded in connecting with this card? (I am using Dell Inspiron 5150).

Have identified it as [14e4:4320] based on the Broadcom 4306/3 chip set which requires the B43 driver. This is provided by the Mint Additional Drivers facility and shows as installed in the Package Manager as "firmware-b43-installer" and "b43-fwcutter." The former providing the driver and the latter firmware.

Using the command  "lshw -c network" I get the following:

 *-network:0            
      description: Ethernet interface
      product: BCM4401 100Base-T
      vendor: Broadcom Corporation
      physical id: 1
      bus info: pci@0000:02:01.0
      logical name: eth0
      version: 01
      serial: 00:0d:56:b6:fc:1f
      width: 32 bits
      clock: 33MHz
      capabilities: bus_master cap_list ethernet physical
      configuration: broadcast=yes driver=b44 driverversion=2.0 latency=32 multicast=yes
      resources: irq:17 memory:faffe000-faffffff
 *-network:1
      description: Network controller
      product: BCM4306 802.11b/g Wireless LAN Controller
      vendor: Broadcom Corporation
      physical id: 2
      bus info: pci@0000:02:02.0
      version: 02
      width: 32 bits
      clock: 33MHz
      capabilities: bus_master cap_list
      configuration: driver=b43-pci-bridge latency=32
      resources: irq:18 memory:faffc000-faffdfff
 *-network DISABLED
      description: Wireless interface
      physical id: 1
      logical name: wlan0
      serial: 00:90:4b:67:5f:1a
      capabilities: ethernet physical wireless
      configuration: broadcast=yes driver=b43legacy driverversion=2.6.35-22-generic firmware=N/A multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bg


As you can see the card is seen and the drivers are in place but it seems to be disabled. I get no wlan connection in the Network Manager, but do see "enable wireless" from right click network connection status icon.

I barely understand the above configuration apart from the word DISABLED. Do not know where to check firmware is being loaded. And I am also puzzled driver is showing as b43legacy (BCM 4301/2) and not B43 (BCM 4301/3).

Any guidance would be much appreciated. Remember I am a complete novice. Thanks

[Glenn]

As a fellow novice, I got my mini 9 wireless working using the Windows driver and NdisWrapper, which I found in the control panel.

[Steve]

Any use
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/WirelessCardsSupported

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/Driver/Ndiswrapper


Edit:  CLI     

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sudo ifconfig wlan0 up


Try the Dell keyboard wifi button

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/WiFiHowTo



Any errors on

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dmesg with regard wlan0

[davej99]

As a fellow novice, I got my mini 9 wireless working using the Windows driver and NdisWrapper, which I found in the control panel.

Thanks Glen. Ashamed to say I could not get that to work either.

Any errors on

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dmesg with regard wlan0

Thanks Steve. Get dmesg errors:

[   27.713879] b43legacy-phy0 ERROR: Firmware file "b43legacy/ucode4.fw" not found or load failed.
[   27.713891] b43legacy-phy0 ERROR: You must go to http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/b43#devicefirmware and download the correct firmware (version 3).

I guess firmware is not loading. Perhaps download is not working. Any ideas?

Cheers, Dave.

[Steve]

Can't really get you much further it looks like it should use the b43 files so I'm unsure why it's looking for the legacy version. I note there are various versions of the fwcutter required for the different Linux kernels, check your using the right one. Have you tried the Ndiswrapper solution?

Edit: I guess the package manger will have installed the correct fwcutter for the kernel

If you think you've installed the b43 driver try

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sudo modprobe b43

[D-Dan]

Take a look in the lib/firmware directory to ensure that the firmware file for your card is in there. You are looking for the sub directory b43legacy containing the file ucode4.fw.

Steve

[davej99]

Can't really get you much further it looks like it should use the b43 files so I'm unsure why it's looking for the legacy version. I note there are various versions of the fwcutter required for the different Linux kernels, check your using the right one. Have you tried the Ndiswrapper solution?

Edit: I guess the package manger will have installed the correct fwcutter for the kernel

If you think you've installed the b43 driver try

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sudo modprobe b43

Thanks for your ongoing help, Steve.

I am using fresh unmodified Linux Mint 10 install which includes fwcutter, so I am assuming it is the right version.

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sudo modprobe b43
runs and returns blank.

Take a look in the lib/firmware directory to ensure that the firmware file for your card is in there. You are looking for the sub directory b43legacy containing the file ucode4.fw.

Steve

Thanks for your help, D-Dan.

I had uninstalled the drivers, so re-ran "Additional Drivers," which offers "Broadcom b43legacy wireless driver." This is described as supporting among others BCM4306/3 chipset, which is correct ID per my earlier post. But B43legacy supports BCM4306/2 whereas BCM4306/3 requires b43. So the install description appears mixed.

After the install I have /lib/firmware/b43, which contains ucode5.fw as well as ditto9, 11, 13, 14, 15. I do not have /b43legacy or ucode4.fw. Perhaps "firmware-b43-installer" and "b43-fwcutter." have installed the correct b43 firmware in the correct directory, but b43legacy firmware is being sought hence:
[   27.713879] b43legacy-phy0 ERROR: Firmware file "b43legacy/ucode4.fw" not found or load failed.

Still have from

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lshw

*-network:1
      description: Network controller
      product: BCM4306 802.11b/g Wireless LAN Controller
      vendor: Broadcom Corporation
      physical id: 2
      bus info: pci@0000:02:02.0
      version: 02
      width: 32 bits
      clock: 33MHz
      capabilities: bus_master cap_list
      configuration: driver=b43-pci-bridge latency=32
      resources: irq:18 memory:faffc000-faffdfff
 *-network DISABLED
      description: Wireless interface
      physical id: 1
      logical name: wlan0
      serial: 00:90:4b:67:5f:1a
      capabilities: ethernet physical wireless
      configuration: broadcast=yes driver=b43legacy driverversion=2.6.35-22-generic firmware=N/A multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bg

This looks like the wrong driver. Is this what is calling for b43legacy/ucode4.fw? Sorry to say I do not know where to go next because I am only a few days into Linux workings, except may be find the b43 driver to install. Further guidance would be much appreciated if time permits. Feel we are close to a fix.

Again thanks everyone for all the help. Cheers, Dave.

Edit:

Have both b43 and b43legacy drivers present but I do not know how to change which is being used. (Did say I am new to linux).

[MisterW]

It's very confusing as to which driver ( b43 / legacy ) should be used isn't it.
Have you been here http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/b43

It's probably worth trying the lspci -vnn | grep 14e4 command to identify exactly ( hopefully! ) which version you have since the id 14e4:4320 can need 3 different drivers according to the table in that link.

[D-Dan]

It may also be worthwhile going back and restarting the installation. See here for complete details of what to do:

http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/b43#Ubuntu.2BAC8-Debian (Follow Ubuntu instructions for Mint)

Use Synaptic to purge fwcutter first, then start again.

Steve

[davej99]

Prompted by MrW to check the chipset again I noticed after [14e4:4320] was (rev 02), perhaps this means bcm4306/2 not /3 as I had thought. So b43 firmware would be incorrect.

The "Additional Drivers" facility offered b43legacy driver for bcm4306/2 chipset and downloaded loaded the b43 firmware as I reported earlier. To find out which was right I removed firmware-b43-installer and b43-fwcutter taking me back to a clean install and no firmware. I discovered I had drivers already installed for b43 and b43legacy and by accident I had found extracted firmware for each, which I placed in /library/firmware. The result is that the card now works.

I will double check by installing firmware again using firmware-b43legacy-installer and b43-fwcutter. Perversely the "Additional Drivers" facility is now offering b43legacy driver for bcm4306/2. I guess it is broken and I am too novice to work that out on my own.

So I think we have got to the problem thanks to everyone's help and encouragement.
all round.
Cheers, Dave

[MisterW]

Glad we got you working.

[Steve]

 

[D-Dan]

There are no Linux problems, only elusive solutions

Glad you got it all going 

Steve

[davej99]

Just one tiny question more. In Windows you can choose which driver to use from any you might have. How do you do this in linux? Thx again, Dave.

[MisterW]

On startup Linux will detect the hardware and use the appropriate driver automatically. If there is more than one possible driver for a particular piece of hardware then you can prevent the 'wrong' driver detecting it by blacklisting it.
http://www.ehow.com/how_7517426_edit-ubuntus-blacklist.html

[D-Dan]

Of course, if it's working, don't mess. When you start blacklisting you can mess things up very quickly. (And so speaks the voice of experience - blacklisted some video drivers once, and kaput went the system)

Steve

[MisterW]

Of course, if it's working, don't mess.

I'll second that.
As D-Dan says , blacklisting is not something to undertake lightly, particularly with drivers for critical parts of the system.