Fedora Core 5 and Wireless support

[sonoma1993]

I have a dell Latitude 120L with Fedora Core 5 installed on it. Fedora detects my wireless card as a Broadcom Corp BCM 4318 ( Air Force One 54g) 802.11g Wireless lan controller. Im having a hard time getting this wireless card to work with fedora. When I goto activate the card in network configuration, it gives me the erro failed; no link present check cable. Under the hardware it detects it as a wireless device and the status is listed as ok. Is there somethen Im doing wrong here? I ran the wifi radar program, but it not picking up the signal from my linksys router. I'm not sure what todo here.

 

[nweaver]

broadcom support sucks, I would look for a card based on: Ralink, Proxim, Intel, or Atheros chipsets.

 

[Nothinman]

I didn't think FC5 had the bcm43xx drivers in it.

 

[Brazen]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
I didn't think FC5 had the bcm43xx drivers in it.

I'm pretty sure the bcm43xx driveres are in the kernel, so yes Fedora will have them, but I also think the bcm43xx drivers do not support the 4318 chipset (or poor support anyway, the 4306 is, supposedly, pretty well supported), and you do have to manually install the firmware package. From the Ubuntu wiki:

The 4318 chipset isn't officially supported as of August 07, 2006. You will encounter problems; these are currently being worked on.

Using the linux native driver under Ubuntu (with the firmware) did not work for my eMachine's laptop though (4306 chipset). I eventually gave up on it and used ndiswrapper which was a piece of cake and has no problems so far.

 

[Nothinman]

I'm pretty sure the bcm43xx driveres are in the kernel, so yes Fedora will have them, but I also think the bcm43xx drivers do not support the 4318 chipset (or poor support anyway, the 4306 is, supposedly, pretty well supported), and you do have to manually install the firmware package. From the Ubuntu wiki

But they only went in with like the 2.6.18 release and FC5 has been out longer than that. I assumed that since he's just now asking about it, he's just installed FC5 and would have whatever kernel they released with.

 

[sonoma1993]

yeah I have the latest update of fedora core 5, ran yum update.

 

[kamper]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

I'm pretty sure the bcm43xx driveres are in the kernel, so yes Fedora will have them, but I also think the bcm43xx drivers do not support the 4318 chipset (or poor support anyway, the 4306 is, supposedly, pretty well supported), and you do have to manually install the firmware package. From the Ubuntu wiki

But they only went in with like the 2.6.18 release and FC5 has been out longer than that. I assumed that since he's just now asking about it, he's just installed FC5 and would have whatever kernel they released with.

Last I remember, fedora pushes out kernel updates pretty frequently. Like on the order of weekly (although it's been over a year since I've used it).

 

[postmortemIA]

kernel-2.6.18-1.2200.fc5.i586.rpm just come out two days ago.

Still i recommend for wireless to simply use ndiswrapper.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: postmortemIA
Still i recommend for wireless to simply use ndiswrapper.

That's horrible.

 

[Brazen]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: postmortemIA
Still i recommend for wireless to simply use ndiswrapper.

That's horrible.

Yeah, even though I ended up using ndiswrapper, I would definately go with a native linux driver if at all possible. However in the case of the 4318, I afraid ndiswrapper is probably going to be the only way to go.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Brazen

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: postmortemIA
Still i recommend for wireless to simply use ndiswrapper.

That's horrible.

Yeah, even though I ended up using ndiswrapper, I would definately go with a native linux driver if at all possible. However in the case of the 4318, I afraid ndiswrapper is probably going to be the only way to go.

That's why god made RALink.

 

[postmortemIA]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: Brazen

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: postmortemIA
Still i recommend for wireless to simply use ndiswrapper.

That's horrible.

Yeah, even though I ended up using ndiswrapper, I would definately go with a native linux driver if at all possible. However in the case of the 4318, I afraid ndiswrapper is probably going to be the only way to go.

That's why god made RALink.

Ugh, that chipset is major POS. It breaks down even on Windows. On Linux, it locks my system when it tries to get DHCP address. I would recommed Broadcom over it at any time. At least hardware in it is good, and Win drivers are not a joke.

Nothing wrong with ndiswrapper, at least it is stable.

 

[Brazen]

Originally posted by: postmortemIA

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: Brazen

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: postmortemIA
Still i recommend for wireless to simply use ndiswrapper.

That's horrible.

Yeah, even though I ended up using ndiswrapper, I would definately go with a native linux driver if at all possible. However in the case of the 4318, I afraid ndiswrapper is probably going to be the only way to go.

That's why god made RALink.

Ugh, that chipset is major POS. It breaks down even on Windows. On Linux, it locks my system when it tries to get DHCP address. I would recommed Broadcom over it at any time. At least hardware in it is good, and Win drivers are not a joke.

Nothing wrong with ndiswrapper, at least it is stable.

I believe the problems n0c is refering to with ndiswrapper is from a political standpoint, rather than a technical one.

And to n0c: I've actally had great luck with Atheros and the madwifi drivers. However, my broadcom wifi is built-in which is much much more convenient than messing with a pcmcia card (I've come acroos many broken antennae, including one of my own). My next laptop though, I will check for a little more opensource-friendly hardware.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: postmortemIA
Ugh, that chipset is major POS. It breaks down even on Windows. On Linux, it locks my system when it tries to get DHCP address. I would recommed Broadcom over it at any time. At least hardware in it is good, and Win drivers are not a joke.

Nothing wrong with ndiswrapper, at least it is stable.

2 PCI RALink cards work fine for me in OpenBSD/i386 and previously in Windows.
MiniPCI one works fine on OpenBSD/amd64 and Fedora 5.
USB one works fine on OpenBSD/i386 and Mac OS X.

Maybe it's user error.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Brazen
I believe the problems n0c is refering to with ndiswrapper is from a political standpoint, rather than a technical one.

It's VERY technical. Technically Broadcom doesn't produce documentation for their hardware. Technically I can't have open drivers without that documentation or reverse engineering. Writing a driver is a technical thing, not political.

As nVidia and Atheros have proven, closed drivers are dumb. Technically.

And to n0c: I've actally had great luck with Atheros and the madwifi drivers.

Still a closed driver, unless you happen to use the one that uses the Open HAL.

However, my broadcom wifi is built-in which is much much more convenient than messing with a pcmcia card (I've come acroos many broken antennae, including one of my own). My next laptop though, I will check for a little more opensource-friendly hardware.

It isn't MiniPCI?

 

[Brazen]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
It's VERY technical. Technically Broadcom doesn't produce documentation for their hardware. Technically I can't have open drivers without that documentation or reverse engineering. Writing a driver is a technical thing, not political.

Technically, ndiswrapper works just fine. But whatever, call it how you want; it's just arguing semantics anyway.

[madwifi] Still a closed driver, unless you happen to use the one that uses the Open HAL.

It's been a year ago. I did not know madwifi was closed. I used whatever was in FC3 or FC4's yum repos.

It isn't MiniPCI?

Probably. Either way, there is no antenna sticking out the side of my laptop to get broken off. And if you are suggesting switching out the miniPCI card, I don't like that idea either, for a couple reasons.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Brazen
It's been a year ago. I did not know madwifi was closed. I used whatever was in FC3 or FC4's yum repos.

Then it's probably the closed one.

Probably. Either way, there is no antenna sticking out the side of my laptop to get broken off. And if you are suggesting switching out the miniPCI card, I don't like that idea either, for a couple reasons.

That's the best option. Drop the crappy cards, let those companies know that you don't appreciate their attitude and that you are going to use a card from a company that cares. Then use one of those cards.

 

[postmortemIA]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: postmortemIA
Ugh, that chipset is major POS. It breaks down even on Windows. On Linux, it locks my system when it tries to get DHCP address. I would recommed Broadcom over it at any time. At least hardware in it is good, and Win drivers are not a joke.

Nothing wrong with ndiswrapper, at least it is stable.

2 PCI RALink cards work fine for me in OpenBSD/i386 and previously in Windows.
MiniPCI one works fine on OpenBSD/amd64 and Fedora 5.
USB one works fine on OpenBSD/i386 and Mac OS X.

Maybe it's user error.

Maybe not, as Broadcom works just fine in same cases. Check the Ralink forums, people experienced same things: random connection dropping. How the hell that can be user error?

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: postmortemIA

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: postmortemIA
Ugh, that chipset is major POS. It breaks down even on Windows. On Linux, it locks my system when it tries to get DHCP address. I would recommed Broadcom over it at any time. At least hardware in it is good, and Win drivers are not a joke.

Nothing wrong with ndiswrapper, at least it is stable.

2 PCI RALink cards work fine for me in OpenBSD/i386 and previously in Windows.
MiniPCI one works fine on OpenBSD/amd64 and Fedora 5.
USB one works fine on OpenBSD/i386 and Mac OS X.

Maybe it's user error.

Maybe not, as Broadcom works just fine in same cases. Check the Ralink forums, people experienced same things: random connection dropping. How the hell that can be user error?

There are a lot of users that make a lot of errors.

If the chip is just bad, how come 4 RALink based adapters are working fine for me?

 

[postmortemIA]

Because your access points are different. Dropping rate must be proportional to distance.

Or perhaps per your claim, I maliciusly drop the connection so I can brag here.

BTW older driver also managed to lock system few times a day.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: postmortemIA
Because your access points are different. Dropping rate must be proportional to distance.

Or perhaps per your claim, I maliciusly drop the connection so I can brag here.

BTW older driver also managed to lock system few times a day.

How far away should I try it? To see if it drops I mean.

What kind of access point were you using?

I never said anything about malicious sabotage.

 

[Nothinman]

Technically, ndiswrapper works just fine. But whatever, call it how you want; it's just arguing semantics anyway.

The fact that ndiswrapper works at all is pure luck since Windows drivers are allowed like 3-4x the stack size of Linux drivers.

 

[postmortemIA]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: postmortemIA
Because your access points are different. Dropping rate must be proportional to distance.

Or perhaps per your claim, I maliciusly drop the connection so I can brag here.

BTW older driver also managed to lock system few times a day.

How far away should I try it? To see if it drops I mean.

What kind of access point were you using?

I never said anything about malicious sabotage.

AP is about 20-40m away from me. But it is full-scale AP, not just a router with antenna. It is made by 3Com

Even with Actiontec router/AP and few meters away, connection will drop once in a while. I'm talking about RT2500 chipset.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: postmortemIA
AP is about 20-40m away from me. But it is full-scale AP, not just a router with antenna. It is made by 3Com

Ok, I don't have one of those.

Even with Actiontec router/AP and few meters away, connection will drop once in a while. I'm talking about RT2500 chipset.

Works fine with my Linksys cheap-o-router, and a couple of other routers I've connected to (in particular with OpenBSD, and I had forgotten to mention I've been using it with decent success on OpenBSD/MacPPC too ). I'll have to try it with a few others around town though, and more with Linux.

Forgot to ask earlier, WEP, WPA, none, something else?

 

[postmortemIA]

none of that stuff. Just adapter drops signal, when other one doesn't- that is all.