Broadcom 43xx - cannot enable the card (wlan button)

[rag]

I will write you down in a few days, I am just very busy recently and I have to search for the links and so on... Probably during the weekend

[zonkers]

Thanks a lot rag. I really appreciate it.

[rag]

Hi zonkers
first
you can't use acerhk on 64bit OS. You have to use acer_acpi. Go on this site http://www.archernar.co.uk/acer_acpi...acpi_main.html and follow the instructions there for the installation.
After that you need bcm43xx-fwcutter. Type in the terminal as root:

yum install bcm43xx-fwcutter

And the last thing - you need to have the network manager and the network manager distpatcher running. To do that, type in the terminal as root:

/sbin/chkconfig --level 345 NetworkManager on
/sbin/chkconfig --level 345 NetworkManagerDispatcher on
/sbin/service NetworkManager start ; /sbin/service NetworkManagerDispatcher start

Now restart your machine.

After your machine is up and running again, you have to extract the firmware with the bcm43xx-fwcutter. To do this, download the tar.gz file attachment from my post and extract in an empty directory with the command:

gzip -cd wifi.tar.gz | tar xvf -

Now you will have the two files
bcmwl5.sys
bcmwl5a.inf
in this directory. Now still from the same directory type:

/usr/bin/bcm43xx-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware bcmwl5.sys

This will add some files in the /lib/firmware directory - you can verify that by the command

ls /lib/firmware

You should see about 15 files there starting with bcm43xx_. Now the final step - enable the wlan card. To do that first do

modprobe acer_acpi

this will load the acer_acpi kernel module, the one you will use to talk to your card

chmod 777 /proc/acpi/acer/wireless

This one you do to be able to "talk" to the card via the file in /proc/acpi

echo "enabled : 1" > /proc/acpi/acer/wireless

Now the final step - use the Network Manager that you enabled (in my Gnome it is on the top right, near the clock). to manage your Connections. Still first you have to go in administration of the Network card (system-->admnistration-->network) to assign an IP, SUBNET MASK, DNS, GATEWAY to your card. Do not assign the wep key there - leave it empty, this way it will ask you during connecting to the network.

Hopefully this will help, if not - write again and I will try to help you.

JoeF:
My advice is not to use ndiswrapper at all. Try the bcm43xx-fwcutter approach described above. But if you have 32bits installation, do not use acer_acpi but acerhk, it is described how in my previous post on the previous page
http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showpo...05&postcount=8

[zonkers]

Thank you rag for description but I'm still unable to get it worked. The problem is when I try to 'make' acer_acpi, I receive the following error:

[root@localhost acer_acpi-0.3]# make
awk: command line:1: fatal error: cannot open the file `/lib/modules/2.6.18-1.2798.fc6/build/include/linux/version.h' to read (There is no file or directory)
gcc -I/lib/modules/`uname -r`/build/include -c -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -Wno-trigraphs -O2 -fomit-frame-pointer -fno-strict-aliasing -fno-common -pipe -DMODVERSIONS -DMODULE -D__KERNEL__ -o acer_acpi.o acer_acpi.c
/bin/sh: gcc: command not found
make: *** [acer_acpi.o] Error 127

Because I'm new in Linux, I have no idea what it could be. I can only quess it's C compiler error.
Any ideas?

[Stian1979]

I was able to get onlin a few times by the description here, so I gues asus and acer has some co-operation, but.

Originally Posted by Stian1979

I use KDE and my Wireless assistance show my network, but don't conect to it.

The second time I try it did conect, but after a while it disconected and I was unable to get it back online.

The broadcom driver in the kernel don't work for this card and the reason I gues is that it's chipset is broadcom while it's made by asus. The driver I use now is win64 for acer in niswraper.

I have only once later sucseded to get online with this card and then the network showed up in the wireless assistance and also the the card was set as active in the network, Later I has allways ben unable to activate the card even the wireless assistance show my network.

I have ben strugeling with this now for 2 week's and I see that I nead help.

Not a big problem since i still can use lan but I decide to try to fix it myself.

Originally Posted by Stian1979

Ok..

I modefyed wlan configfiles and now my computer won't boot.

It stop right at NFS statd.

ok, now I am in truble.

[Stian1979]

annyone that can help me?

[Democritus42]

It seems that there's been no real fix since february? My Acer Aspire 1360 was not repaired using any of the above steps. Fortunately, the card is a mini-pci and removable. I was going to order a different card, but the new version of Ubuntu got it right. It works on that. so for now, the laptop is going to stay on Gutsy Gibbon or better.

[FriedChips]

Originally Posted by Democritus42

It seems that there's been no real fix since february? My Acer Aspire 1360 was not repaired using any of the above steps. Fortunately, the card is a mini-pci and removable. I was going to order a different card, but the new version of Ubuntu got it right. It works on that. so for now, the laptop is going to stay on Gutsy Gibbon or better.

As always it is best to try these things on a fresh install. A new attempt can be completely whacked because of a previous attempt.