[Tfug] bcm4306 wireless

[Tom Rini]

On Sun, May 28, 2006 at 09:17:03PM -0700, Paul Scott wrote:
> Tom Rini wrote:
> > On Fri, May 26, 2006 at 11:00:55PM -0700, Brian Masur wrote:
> >
> >   
> >> My Gateway 7422GX notebook has internal mini-PCI bcm4306.  While it works 
> >> with ndiswrapper (and 64-bit windows driver) it does have some trouble.  It 
> >> often switches off from whatever ESSID it was on to ESSID:NONE/OFF.  The 
> >> only way I can bring it back when it does that is to rmmod/modprobe 
> >> ndiswrapper.  IMO, ndiswrapper is total rubbish.
> >>     
> >
> > With a 2.6.16.X or 2.6.17-rcN kernel, you should be able to use a real
> > driver for this chipset. 
> Do you know anything else about this real driver?

Only that if you compile a recent kernel you should be able to use the
card, sorry.

> >  It's of course not perfect but it is usable.
> > I don't have any first-hand experiance with it however, sorry.
> >   
> Anything you do know, second-hand or otherwise, would be appreciated.

I know people are using it and it's functional.  I can't attest to it
being sleep-safe or doing encrypted networks, but that it does have
basic functionality.

Support is in the 2.6.17-rc series and here is the readme now found in
the kernel at Documentation/networking/bcm43xx.txt

			BCM43xx Linux Driver Project
			============================

About this software
-------------------

The goal of this project is to develop a linux driver for Broadcom
BCM43xx chips, based on the specification at 
http://bcm-specs.sipsolutions.net/

The project page is http://bcm43xx.berlios.de/


Requirements
------------

1)	Linux Kernel 2.6.16 or later
	http://www.kernel.org/

	You may want to configure your kernel with:

	CONFIG_DEBUG_FS (optional):
		-> Kernel hacking
		  -> Debug Filesystem

2)	SoftMAC IEEE 802.11 Networking Stack extension and patched ieee80211
	modules:
	http://softmac.sipsolutions.net/

3)	Firmware Files

	Please try fwcutter. Fwcutter can extract the firmware from various 
	binary driver files. It supports driver files from Windows, MacOS and 
	Linux. You can get fwcutter from http://bcm43xx.berlios.de/.
	Also, fwcutter comes with a README file for further instructions.

-- 
Tom Rini