SOLVED: Broadcom B43 wireless on HP Mini

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ogobot
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Joined: Fri 29 Jul 2011, 16:39

SOLVED: Broadcom B43 wireless on HP Mini

#1 Post by ogobot »

Forum:

I can tell from perusing the various groups that there are/were known networking bugs in the drivers for the Broadcom B43 wireless card/chip set.

2nd related issue (which I get the sense is also a known problem) is that when I try (unsuccessfully) to establish wireless communications on my HpMini (with the broadcom B43 chipset), all the other profiles I have saved for my other machines (which work just fine up to that point) get trashed. It's so bad that I have to reinstall puppy from scratch to get it back to normal.

This is the understanding I've got from bouncing around the forum. What I can't manage to discover is whether or not a permanent fix for this all has been found. I apologize in advance if this matter has been dispensed with and I have overlooked an already posted solution. But I given it quite some time and have come up dry.

Thanks for the help

Brian@ogobot.org
Last edited by ogobot on Tue 02 Aug 2011, 18:49, edited 1 time in total.

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rjbrewer
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Location: merriam, kansas

Re: Broadcom B43 wireless on HP Mini

#2 Post by rjbrewer »

ogobot wrote:Forum:

I can tell from perusing the various groups that there are/were known networking bugs in the drivers for the Broadcom B43 wireless card/chip set.

2nd related issue (which I get the sense is also a known problem) is that when I try (unsuccessfully) to establish wireless communications on my HpMini (with the broadcom B43 chipset), all the other profiles I have saved for my other machines (which work just fine up to that point) get trashed. It's so bad that I have to reinstall puppy from scratch to get it back to normal.

This is the understanding I've got from bouncing around the forum. What I can't manage to discover is whether or not a permanent fix for this all has been found. I apologize in advance if this matter has been dispensed with and I have overlooked an already posted solution. But I given it quite some time and have come up dry.

Thanks for the help

Brian@ogobot.org
Don't know if this will help or not:

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 8624c231bb

Fluppy:

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 44&t=56156

Inspiron 700m, Pent.M 1.6Ghz, 1Gb ram.
Msi Wind U100, N270 1.6>2.0Ghz, 1.5Gb ram.
Eeepc 8g 701, 900Mhz, 1Gb ram.
Full installs

ogobot
Posts: 31
Joined: Fri 29 Jul 2011, 16:39

#3 Post by ogobot »

Could work. Plan A right now is to find a USB wireless transmitter that is known compatible with Puppy. Anybody out there happen to have a list?

Thanks.

brian

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rjbrewer
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Location: merriam, kansas

#4 Post by rjbrewer »

ogobot wrote:Could work. Plan A right now is to find a USB wireless transmitter that is known compatible with Puppy. Anybody out there happen to have a list?

Thanks.

brian
I've had good luck with 802.11g zd1211 dongles that use Zydas chipset.

http://linux-wless.passys.nl/query_chip ... pset=Zydas

Inspiron 700m, Pent.M 1.6Ghz, 1Gb ram.
Msi Wind U100, N270 1.6>2.0Ghz, 1.5Gb ram.
Eeepc 8g 701, 900Mhz, 1Gb ram.
Full installs

ogobot
Posts: 31
Joined: Fri 29 Jul 2011, 16:39

#5 Post by ogobot »

Thank you very much. That will be a huge help.

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rjbrewer
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Location: merriam, kansas

#6 Post by rjbrewer »

ogobot wrote:Thank you very much. That will be a huge help.
Another Broadcom tip;

http://puppeee.com/bb/topic/fluppy-and- ... -4312-sigh

Inspiron 700m, Pent.M 1.6Ghz, 1Gb ram.
Msi Wind U100, N270 1.6>2.0Ghz, 1.5Gb ram.
Eeepc 8g 701, 900Mhz, 1Gb ram.
Full installs

ogobot
Posts: 31
Joined: Fri 29 Jul 2011, 16:39

#7 Post by ogobot »

Tried that driver. Problem is the HpMini I'm working on has the Atom processor. There's a driver that was alleged to work for that too. Couldn't get to work for me though.

tempestuous
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Location: Australia

#8 Post by tempestuous »

ogobot, it's very important to reveal the exact version of Puppy you are using when asking for help.

You need the proprietary "wl" Broadcom wifi driver, this subject has been trawled over a bezillion times on the forum.
The compatible driver version for Puppy Lucid 5.1/5.2.x is here -
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 596#421596
Fluppy includes the wl driver as standard, but otherwise it's no better or worse than any other version of Puppy once the wl driver is installed, and configured.

ogobot
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Joined: Fri 29 Jul 2011, 16:39

#9 Post by ogobot »

Tempestuous:

Sorry - I'm running puppy 5,2,5. I'm completely new to it, and have no idea how to query the kernel or invoke the right console that will accept the query. (I searched and found a command "$uname -a" but it just returns a no such file or directory error. Maybe someone can let the newbie know how to get to the console or prompt that I'm supposed to be working at?)

I'm not going to able to get to this till later, but didn't want to let the response go for too long. Would you confirm, the correct driver on the page you linked out to is

lhttp://dl.dropbox.com/u/17126237/lupu-525/lupu-525.iso___lupu-525_bcmwlmod.iso.delta ?

Will this run just like a regular package (ie, just click on it) or do I have to do something special?

Also, apologies - I know this has been gone over on the forum but I am having trouble arriving at the right search combinations to get me to the solution.

Ok - Thanks very much for your assistance.

brian

ogobot
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#10 Post by ogobot »

Got it.

Kernel version is 2.6.33.2

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rjbrewer
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#11 Post by rjbrewer »

ogobot wrote:Tried that driver. Problem is the HpMini I'm working on has the Atom processor. There's a driver that was alleged to work for that too. Couldn't get to work for me though.
Almost all small netbooks use atom cpu .(has nothing to do with
the wireless problem)

Inspiron 700m, Pent.M 1.6Ghz, 1Gb ram.
Msi Wind U100, N270 1.6>2.0Ghz, 1.5Gb ram.
Eeepc 8g 701, 900Mhz, 1Gb ram.
Full installs

tempestuous
Posts: 5464
Joined: Fri 10 Jun 2005, 05:12
Location: Australia

#12 Post by tempestuous »

I'm not too clear about the "delta" file situation, myself.
So forget about the delta file, and just download "broadcom_sta-5.6.48.36-i486.pet".
Then use ROX to browse to where you downloaded the dotpet, and click on it once, to install.

And you must also follow piratesmack's instructions -
piratesmack wrote:2) Blacklist b43/ssb
3) Restart computer

ogobot
Posts: 31
Joined: Fri 29 Jul 2011, 16:39

#13 Post by ogobot »

Hello All.

Thanks very much. That did it. My original problem was that I was unaware that B43 had to be black-listed following the installation of the broadcom pet.

Note that the Simple Network Setup (which I gravitated to due to the word 'simple') was unable to negotiate a connection. Only the network wizard picked up the signal and connected. Thanks again all who fed back info to me on this.

Um, one follow-up. Probably unrelated but maybe you can steer me to the right forum -- The USB ports on this netbook are working perfectly, this proven by rock-solid performance under Windows. The USB drive with Puppy installed on it is working perfectly as proved by testing on 2 other machines. The strange problem is that while the Netbook bios recognizes the USB drive, half the time Puppy hangs on boot-up. Most commonly at the first prompt (text to the effect "loading drivers to read storage". If I shut down and re-start, maybe it will work, maybe it won't. I might have to move it to another USB port, in which case it will work, but then won't work if I try to restart using that same port. Sometimes I have to rotate through all three ports until the Puppy finally starts reading the drive.

To emphasize, by all possible hardware tests I can think of, there is nothing wrong with either the USB ports or drive - they all work perfectly under Windows, and the drive reads fine on other machines.

I know this may not be the right forum for this particular issue, but perhaps you might steer me towards the correct one.

Ah, yes -- version 5.25/kernel 2.6.33.2

Thanks very much.

brian

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