Bug 327

Summary:	brcm80211 driver unable to find network interface for bcm4313,
Product:	Mageia	Reporter:	cdaly
Component:	New RPM package request	Assignee:	Thomas Backlund <tmb>
Status:	RESOLVED FIXED	QA Contact:
Severity:	normal
Priority:	Normal	CC:	lists.jjorge, thierry.vignaud
Version:	Cauldron
Target Milestone:	---
Hardware:	i586
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Source RPM:	kernel	CVE:
Status comment:

Description cdaly 2011-03-10 14:04:37 CET

Description of problem: 
brcm80211 driver unable to find network interface for bcm4313, Netbook is a Acer D260 

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
mageia alpha 1 KDE

How reproducible:
Always 

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Open Mageia Control Centre then network Tools 
2.Display Network Centre
3.Finds bcm4313 as available but then will not connect using brcm80211 
 
can a Mageia .rpm file be created that looks after the Broadcom Wireless drivers or development be done of the brcm80211 driver
presently network interface brcm80211 sadly does not recognize a bcm4313 wireless device within the Acer D260 notebook. It looks like
the brcm80211 driver is being relied on by Mageia to do the job, however in
reality  ( and I would presume this concerns every Acer D260 owner who has
installed Mageia ) what I presently get is  "Unable to find network interface
for selected device using brcm80211 driver"   The brcm80211 file if it is installed in Mageia Alpha appears to do nothing.  

The former broadcom -sta driver works in this same computer with
ubuntu 10.04, and despite lots of errors with xorg the latest PC Linux Gnome
based on mandriva finds the bcm4313 straight away, so it can be done.

The front indicator light does not glow orange to indicate wireless is working

Can some work be done to solve this in alpha 2 or versions closer to official
release. Either by getting the brcm80211 to properly do its task, or with
consultation with Broadcom who seem to be helpful to solve functionality of
their drivers.  Also Fedora seem to have a fix with a .rpm file.
Could the package managers take some time to get the broadcom wireless notebooks
and laptops ( I presume there are quite a few computers with the
broadcom chipsets ) working properly with Mageia.

A notebook without wireless capability is pretty hard to use, as it is stuck in
one spot to access internet with a cable, and I really do not want to go back to
Ubuntu when Mageia is so pleasant and nice to use.

I hope this can be solved and I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you /Chris 

Reproducible: 

Steps to Reproduce:

Comment 1 Thierry Vignaud 2011-03-10 15:59:19 CET

Maybe a missing firmware?
Please _attach_ your dmesg output.

Keywords: (none) => NEEDINFO
CC: (none) => thierry.vignaud
Source RPM: drakx-net-0.93-3.mga1 , 2.6.37.3-desktop-1.mga sorry this is not an rpm but a Bug Report Tool at this point refers to these locations => kernel

Thierry Vignaud 2011-03-15 12:14:31 CET

Assignee: bugsquad => tmb

Comment 2 Thomas Backlund 2011-03-20 19:27:34 CET

Also please try with kernel-2.6.38-1.mga1

Comment 3 José Jorge 2011-04-07 15:42:31 CEST

I have the same problem even if the model is slightly different : 

44:00.0 0280: 14e4:4353 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM43224 802.11a/b/g/n (rev 01)

The firmware not found seems a packaging bug, like this OpenSUSE one :
https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=673054

However, symlinking the firmware file with :
cd /lib/firmware/brcm && ln -s bcm43xx-0-610-809-0.fw bcm43xx-0.fw
resulted in a crash at boot : the brcm80211 driver just crashes.
I solved it installing dkms-broadcom-wl , and creating a file to blacklist brcm80211 driver :

/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-wl

containing only one line :

blacklist brcm80211

Maybe this file could come in the dkms-broadcom-wl file?

CC: (none) => lists.jjorge

Comment 4 Thomas Backlund 2011-04-11 00:22:48 CEST

(In reply to comment #3)
> I have the same problem even if the model is slightly different : 
> 
> 44:00.0 0280: 14e4:4353 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM43224
> 802.11a/b/g/n (rev 01)
> 
> The firmware not found seems a packaging bug, like this OpenSUSE one :
> https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=673054
> 

Yeah, it's still broken upstream ...

> However, symlinking the firmware file with :
> cd /lib/firmware/brcm && ln -s bcm43xx-0-610-809-0.fw bcm43xx-0.fw
> resulted in a crash at boot : the brcm80211 driver just crashes.

Fixed symlinks for all brcm80211 firmwares are now available in 
kernel-firmware-extra-20110310-4.mga1

> I solved it installing dkms-broadcom-wl , and creating a file to blacklist
> brcm80211 driver :
> 
> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-wl
> 
> containing only one line :
> 
> blacklist brcm80211
> 
> Maybe this file could come in the dkms-broadcom-wl file?

Yep, good idea, added in broadcom-wl-5.100.82.38-3.mga1

Comment 5 José Jorge 2011-04-11 08:18:19 CEST

OK, it works. How to ensure Mageia will install broadcom-wl when this WLAN card is present?

Status: NEW => RESOLVED
Resolution: (none) => FIXED

Ahmad Samir 2011-04-21 22:51:27 CEST

Keywords: NEEDINFO => (none)