wireless not working

[ejohn]

i have a dell inspiron 1420. i am unable to connect to a wireless network. searching the web i found about ndiswrapper and bcmcutter. the output of lspci is as shown.

09:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetLink BCM5906M Fast Ethernet PCI Express (rev 02)
0c:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11a/b/g (rev 01)

does that mean i have to install new drivers?
what would i have to do in order to connect to a wireless network using a security passphrase(which my network has).. reading the man pages of iwconfig it says it does not support passphrases. whenever i try to start my wlan0 interface it shows SIOCSIFFLAGS: No such file or directory.

iwcondif gives me this..
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

wmaster0 no wireless extensions.

wlan0 IEEE 802.11 ESSID:""
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.412 GHz Access Point: Not-Associated
Tx-Power=0 dBm
Retry min limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr=2352 B
Encryption key:off
Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

pan0 no wireless extensions.

virbr0 no wireless extensions.

any help would be appreciated.

[bbfuller]

Hello ejohn

It looks like the built in b43 driver that Fedora has is recognising your card and that you "should" only need to install the firmware for the card to work.

I say should because it takes someone braver than me to be dogmatic about Linux wireless.

The notes below should help you on your way.

With that card then you should only need to download the firmware, cut it and configure the card with NetworkManager.

Download this file and put it into a directory somewhere:

http://mirror2.openwrt.org/sources/broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5.tar.bz2

Acquire full root rights over your machine with this command in a terminal window:

su -

That's a space and a minus sign after the su. It gives you full root rights over your machine rather than just root rights over your ordinary users environment without it.

Use the cd command to navigate into the directory where you downloaded the above file. Issue the command:

tar xjf broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5.tar.bz2

That unpacks the file archive you downloaded and will create you a new directory where you are working called 'broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5'.

cd into that and then the 'driver' directory within that and use the command:

b43-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware wl_apsta_mimo.o

That cuts the required firmware for your card from the downloaded file and places it in the correct place for the b43 driver to find it.

Check and see if you have NetworkManager showing on the top Gnome Panel to the right in the notification area. If you have ignore the next part.

Go to the "Gnome System Menu - Administration - Services", tick NetworkManager and NetworkMangerDispatcher, make sure they are started and the settings are saved so they start at next boot.

{The above paragraph is only necessary for Fedora 8 definitely not for Fedora 9}

Restart the machine and left clicking on the NetworkManager icon should bring up a list of wireless access points to connect to.

You don't say if you are using Fedora 8 or 9, be aware that the notes are dual purpose as the two versions are slightly different.

Make sure you only use NetworkManager as described to control the card, any other way usually leads to conflicts.

Post back with any questions.

[ejohn]

thanks a lot bbfuller for that prompt reply. will reply if it worked as soon as i get to the wireless hotspot :-)..

[ejohn]

it worked..thnx