Newbie Broadcom Wifi Driver Question

[chke419]

First off I am new to linux but have tried out other live distro's prior to TC 64 bit so I just imagined it would be similar to the others. I put the CD in, direct connected it to the internet and tried to get the wireless working. I opened up Apps and searched for Broadcom for the driver and it gave me 3. Only one would install after 3 different attempts (firmware-broadcom_bnx2x.tcz) the other two said failed and went on to the Wifi app and nothing would show and automatically closed.

I have a Dell Wireless 1397 WLAN Mini Card in my Dell M6400 workstation/laptop which uses a Broadcom driver.

So I guess my question would be is have I missed some steps? I know other distro's just need a driver to show a list of local networks.

[Juanito]

You need to use the "lspci" command from the pci-utils extension to check exactly what broadcom hardware you have in your wifi adapter.

After that you will most probably need either:

the b43 driver in the wireless-KERNEL extension plus firmware that you may need to "cut" yourself.

or

the wl-modules-KERNEL extension, which contains firmware.

[coreplayer2]

Hi chke419

I believe that wireless card has a BCM4312 chip so I think chke419 will need 

wifi.tcz
wl-modules-4.2.9-tinycore.tcz  extensions installed

the info file explains that you should blacklist  b43,bcma and ssb modules.  To accomplish this add

blacklist=bcma,ssb,b43 to your boot config command line

eg:

Code: [Select]

KERNEL /boot/vmlinuz
APPEND initrd=/boot/rootfs.gz,/boot/modules.gz loglevel=3 waitusb=5:UUID="E49A-EE91" blacklist=bcma,ssb,b43


[chke419]

I believe that wireless card has a BCM4312 chip so I think chke419 will need 

Yes after lspci in terminal it did show the Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11 b/g LP-PHY (rev01)

So I went back into Apps and tried to (onboot) install wifi.tcz and it also failed.

[chke419]

Ok, now I have installed

wifi.tcz
wl-modules-3.16.6-tinycore64.tcz  (did not list the 4.2.9 version in Apps)

Where in the world do I find the " boot config command line" ? Remember I'm very much a newbie.

[coreplayer2]

ok great!

run from a terminal (find on wbar at bottom of screen)

Code: [Select]

sudo find / -iname syslinux.cfg
or search for  " grub.cfg " if you're using Grub as the boot manager


wl-modules-3.16.6-tinycore64.tcz is good which means you must be using tc-6.x

[chke419]

ok great!

run from a terminal (find on wbar at bottom of screen)

Code: [Select]

sudo find / -iname syslinux.cfg
or search for  " grub.cfg " if you're using Grub as the boot manager

Well I did what you said and both files returned nothing, I don't know if it's because I followed the manual and did a frugal install or not. I'm so sorry I am putting you though this but I do like the whole concept of TC.

[Juanito]

Are you still booting from the cd or have you installed tinycore to a hard disk or usb stick?

If you're booting from the cd, I believe there is an option to use the broadcom wl module for wifi.

If you're booting from hd/usb stick, you need to find your bootloader config file in order to edit it.

[chke419]

Are you still booting from the cd or have you installed tinycore to a hard disk or usb stick?

I started out with the live CD but when I tried to install the drivers asked of me earlier then I did a frugal install because some of the installs would fail with the live CD. I don't know if this is the way it's supposed to work but this is what happened to me.

[Juanito]

In that case, you must have a file named syslinux.cfg somewhere in your frugal hardware install that you need to check to see if the appropriate drivers are blacklisted in order for the broadcom wl driver to work

[curaga]

(or extlinux.cfg)

[chke419]

I figured now I would try the full install to the thumb drive (not frugal) so I could hopefully find the files you ask for however I still can't find one of those two files. The question I have is could this syslinux.cfg file be gzipped or something because I even tried pcman and it didn't find it either. I even tried wildcard searches if this works in linux as well as windows. You guys have me at wits end here.

I know the search line from heart now.............. sudo find / -iname syslinux.cfg

How about this file? extlinux.conf   The editor shows this:

DEFAULT core
LABEL core
KERNEL /boot/vmlinuz
APPEND initrd=/boot/core.gz quiet  waitusb=5:UUID="75f24bc9-f6da-4eaa-871a-d9462d60c599" tce=UUID="75f24bc9-f6da-4eaa-871a-d9462d60c599"

[chke419]

If that is indeed the file then when I tried to add the command then it said permission denied.

[Misalf]

Code: [Select]

sudo editor /path/to/extlinux.conf


[chke419]

Well if this is supposed to work after reboot by hitting the wifi icon ............. then it didn't. The exact same thing happened, I clicked and it showed nothing and automatically disappeared.