Right, I have a CD with windows drivers on it. The website you
sent refers to the bcm43xx-fwcutter program which "cuts" the firmware
from the windows files. I had been trying to use b43-fwcutter, which
is supposed to do something similar. The bcm43xx one is also
available on synaptic, but I get an error message when I try to
install it. The ubuntu How To that you sent remarked that
"...basically every 'no' vote and 'this didnt work for me' post comes
from a BCM4318 user...." That's my chipset. It's strange, since the
other websites I visited said that it should work.
Perhaps the problem is that I tried two different methods and
they interfered with each other?
Thanks,
Loren
On Thu, Apr 15, 2010 at 1:48 AM, Steven Black <yam655@gmail.com> wrote:
> Okay. I spoke to soon. The reason the firmware doesn't ship in the
> case is because of legal reasons. The site I mentioned doesn't
> actually link to any firmware files.
>
> This may be useful, from
> http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=1071920&mode=linear :
> | * Copy the driver from the CD that came with the Card
> | * Copy it over from your windows partition if you have access to
> it, it will be located here: /Windows/System32/Drivers/bcmwl5.sys
> | * Obtain it from here -http://sidulus.textdrive.com/bcmwl5sys.zip
> | * Get any driver for your card of any date from their website -
> use this if initially you are not successful first tome try some
> newer/older drivers
>
> You use a tool (mentioned at the page I referenced earlier) to "cut"
> the firmware out of the Windows driver.
>
> I hope this helps!
>
> Cheers,
> Steven Black
>
>
> On Wed, Apr 14, 2010 at 9:33 PM, Loren Serfass
> <lorenserfass331@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi,
>> I've been trying for about 12 hours to get my wireless internet
>> connection working, using my old laptop and a new PCMCIA card. I've
>> followed directions from several websites (some are listed in this
>> email), installed lots of tools, and read lots of user forums where
>> people with the similar problems are going around in circles and
>> occasionally stumbling by luck on a solution that happens to work for
>> their specific situation. Before I give up, perhaps the solution will
>> be obvious to someone in a local group.
>> In brief, the websites say my card should work, and my wireless
>> interface is now "configured" and "active." But the "link" light on
>> the card is still off, and when I try wpa_supplicant the PING fails.
>> The iwconfig command shows that there is still no ESSID and the Access
>> Point is "Invalid." When I run dmesg, it shows the following messages
>> over and over:
>> bcm43xx: Error: Microcode "bcm43xx_microcode5.fw" not available or load failed.
>> bcm43xx: core_up for active 802.11 core failed (-2)
>> I don't quite understand what these terms mean.
>> If someone could help, I would appreciate it tremendously!
>>
>> Here are some details to explain some of the steps I've taken.
>> According to linuxwireless.org, my PCMCIA card should work with a b43
>> driver (my card is a Linksys WPC54G ver. 3 with a BCM4318 chipset), so
>> I've followed their directions at
>> http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/b43
>> The b43-fwcutter program runs automatically when I install it using
>> synaptic. Afterwards, there are b43 and b43legacy folders in
>> /etc/firmware/, which seems to be correct. But the connection doesn't
>> work. I don't know how to verify that the firmware has actually been
>> loaded onto the device, which the page claims is necessary.
>> There's a completely different set of directions at
>> http://www.tuxmagazine.com/node/1000167
>> This approach uses ndiswrapper to translate between a windows driver
>> and the operating system. I've tried installing it and I successfully
>> loaded the module into the kernel. Everything went OK until the
>> section entitled "Set up networking." I used the "Network Settings"
>> GUI, which takes a long time but eventually says that the wireless
>> interface is active. When I say "ifup eth2" to the terminal, it says
>> "interface eth2 already configured." However, this doesn't solve the
>> ESSID and Access Point problems, and the directions don't help.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Loren
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>
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