Linksys WPC54G Wireless Card

[ElEdwards]

Is there a plain-English How To on getting this wireless card to work? I can't wrap my brain around ndiswrapper.

I'm dual booting XP and Fedora-8 on my laptop and XP is my only access to the internet unless/until I can get my WPC54G to work with Fedora. (This card works immediately with Ubuntu and derivatives, btw).

Thanks in advance for your patience.

[ElEdwards]

Geez-oh-Man!!
I did a search on "ndiswrapper" here and saw this stuff about "make" and a lot of other technical stuff. I don't have that kind of time to experiment..... I just want it to work!

I just need a VERY straighforward set of steps..... please?

[stoat]

Originally Posted by ElEdward

I just need a VERY straighforward set of steps..... please?

Hello ElEdward,

I use that card with Fedora 7. The alternative to using ndiswrapper is the native b43 driver that is included with Fedora nowadays. It works with my WPC54G with the 4306 chipset. But you do have to "extract" and install firmware for the device from the proprietary driver (sounds worse than it is). Here are some links that I used to teach this to myself and get my Linksys card working:

1. Broadcom bcm43xx/b43 Wireless Support in Fedora This one has the basic steps, but... see what I ended up doing to get this card going in my next post.
   
   
2. bcm43xx Home Page Mostly good for background information, but there are some links to HOWTOs
   
   
3. b43 - Linux Wireless Very good explanation of what all this b43-b43legacy-bcm43xx jazz is all about. Helps understand which firmware file to use for which Broadcom chipset. Things like that.

I think newer versions of the WPC54G may no longer use the Broadcom 43xx chipset. To confirm that your Linksys WPC54G has a Broadcom 43xx chipset, run this terminal command:

/sbin/lspci | grep Network

Example for my WPC54G:

[user@localhost ~]$ /sbin/lspci | grep Network
03:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4306 802.11b/g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 03)

If yours doesn't have a Broadcom 43xx chipset, some other method than what I did will be needed.

P.S.: I don't know if any of this accomplished your objective of straightforward steps. Unfortunately, both methods for this card (bcm43xx native driver and ndiswrapper) involve some steps and a few hoops to jump through. I just hope they are straightforward enough. It wasn't really difficult to get this card connected, but I do remember having to try a few things and read some tutorials before I got there.

[ElEdwards]

Thanks for that information

Unfortunately, I presently have no method of doing a wired internet connection, which the first link you sent says I have to have to update YUM.

....so for now, until my situation changes, it's back to Ubuntu.

But again, thanks!

[stoat]

Well, I don't know how much you want this, but if you confirmed that your card has a Broadcom 43xx chipset, you could try downloading the driver file on your Internet connected computer and somehow transfer it to the laptop: broadcom-wl-4.80.53.0.tar.bz2 (contains the file wl_apsta.o from which the version 4 firmware is extracted)

No promises, but below are steps that I followed to get my WPC54G connected.

1. As root, use b43-fwcutter to extract firmware for the device from wl_apsta.o. You will find the file in the tarball downloaded from the link above. The b43-fwcutter package to extract the firmware from the driver is installed by default in Fedora 8:

   Syntax:
   b43-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware <DRIVERFILE>
   
   Example:
   b43-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware /your/full/path/to/wl_apsta.o/

2. Create an alias for the module in the file /etc/modprobe.conf:

   su
   echo "alias wlan0 b43" >> /etc/modprobe.conf

3. Add the module to the kernel. The b43 module may already be loaded, but it does no harm to run this command anyway.

   modprobe b43

4. Open the Network Configuration utility and select "New", "Wireless connection", and hopefully the card is listed. Enter your router information, save, activate. See if you can connect.
   
   Note: Many people prefer using the NetworkManager service to manage their wireless connection instead of the Network Configuration utility. Use one or the other.

P.S.: This is what I did and it works. To learn more about the bcm43xx, b43 and b43legacy drivers and which one to use, and about the firmware versions and which one to use, and about the extraction apps and which one to use, (under normal circumstances, I guess) see the links in my previous post.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

UPDATE: I installed Fedora 8 on my Thinkpad and was using b43 for wireless. It was working for a while. Then all of a sudden, my connections with b43 slowed way down. I basically could not use the Internet. Everything regarding the b43 setup still looked normal. I have used ndiswrapper before and already understood how to install it and set it up. I did that, and I like it much better in F8. It's fast. I can now check the option to activate the connection at boot up. I can do either method and will always go with what works best for me. I'm happier with ndiswrapper for now.

[ElEdwards]

Thanks for the info I appreciate it..... my laptop (in XP) IS my internet connected computer for now.... when I have some vacation time, I may try the steps you outlined.... but that requires me to boot up in XP, download files, reboot in Fedora, make changes, reboot in XP...back and forth... becaue XP is my internet connection for now.

....so until then, it's back to Mint 4.0