From: Larry Finger on
David wrote:

> Since getting wifi running with the USB stick I did just venture back and
> installed the Broadcom card back into another PC running windows XP and
> found that
> I couldn't get it to run on that either. So now I am wondering if the card
> went bad during all my experimentation!
>
> If after all that you still would like me to try to get it working then I am
> willing to give it a last shot, especially as you have been so helpful to
> me.
> But you'll need to spell out what you want me to do. Please just let me
> know.
> Thanks again.
> Dave
> (going to bed now)

Now I understand. When you said you downloaded and recompiled the
driver, I thought you meant b43. What you downloaded are the MIPS
drivers that contain the firmware, and then recompiled b43-fwcutter -
the program that extracts the firmware from those drivers.

With a Debian-based system, it is very difficult to compile your own
kernel. On openSUSE, which I use, it is as easy as getting the source,
configuring the options for devices and debugging, and the issuing the
commands 'make' and 'sudo make modules_install install' and a new
kernel is built and installed.

When Ubuntu has a kernel with version number 2.6.25.2 or later, your
interface should work "out of the box" except for the firmware.
Broadcom has not, and will not, cooperate with our project. As a
result, we do not have permission to distribute their firmware, which
is why you have to download a piece of their code and extract the
firmware from it.

Larry
From: David on

"Larry Finger" <Larry.Finger(a)lwfinger.net> wrote in message
news:VNUPj.239484$cQ1.87318(a)bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
> David wrote:
>
>> Since getting wifi running with the USB stick I did just venture back and
>> installed the Broadcom card back into another PC running windows XP and
>> found that
>> I couldn't get it to run on that either. So now I am wondering if the
>> card went bad during all my experimentation!
>>
>> If after all that you still would like me to try to get it working then I
>> am willing to give it a last shot, especially as you have been so helpful
>> to me.
>> But you'll need to spell out what you want me to do. Please just let me
>> know.
>> Thanks again.
>> Dave
>> (going to bed now)
>
> Now I understand. When you said you downloaded and recompiled the driver,
> I thought you meant b43. What you downloaded are the MIPS drivers that
> contain the firmware, and then recompiled b43-fwcutter - the program that
> extracts the firmware from those drivers.
>
> With a Debian-based system, it is very difficult to compile your own
> kernel. On openSUSE, which I use, it is as easy as getting the source,
> configuring the options for devices and debugging, and the issuing the
> commands 'make' and 'sudo make modules_install install' and a new kernel
> is built and installed.
>
> When Ubuntu has a kernel with version number 2.6.25.2 or later, your
> interface should work "out of the box" except for the firmware. Broadcom
> has not, and will not, cooperate with our project. As a result, we do not
> have permission to distribute their firmware, which is why you have to
> download a piece of their code and extract the firmware from it.
>
> Larry
My apologies Larry if I misled you (un-intentially) with an incorrect
explanation. I trust I'll get better at using the correct terminology as I
gain in experience.
All the best
Dave


From: Darren Salt on
I demand that Larry Finger may or may not have written...

[snip]
> With a Debian-based system, it is very difficult to compile your own
> kernel.

Pull the other one.

> On openSUSE, which I use, it is as easy as getting the source, configuring
> the options for devices and debugging, and the issuing the commands 'make'
> and 'sudo make modules_install install' and a new kernel is built and
> installed.

That works on Debian too, given suitable sudo configuration; but there's
always "su -". (I prefer "fakeroot make-kpkg kernel-image"; I get a .deb to
install.)

> When Ubuntu has a kernel with version number 2.6.25.2 or later, your
> interface should work "out of the box" except for the firmware.

You'd have to check the changelog for that, since they'll have 2.6.25-N with
a changelog entry which says something like "Update to 2.6.25.2.".
(/usr/share/doc/kernel-image-2.6.25-*/changelog.Debian.gz)

BTW, how do you know what fixes will be in 2.6.25.2? ;-)

[snip]
--
| Darren Salt | linux or ds at | nr. Ashington, | Toon
| RISC OS, Linux | youmustbejoking,demon,co,uk | Northumberland | Army
| + Buy local produce. Try to walk or cycle. TRANSPORT CAUSES GLOBAL WARMING.

We're all over it, like a cheap suit.
From: Larry Finger on
Darren Salt wrote:
> I demand that Larry Finger may or may not have written...
>
> [snip]
>> With a Debian-based system, it is very difficult to compile your own
>> kernel.
>
> Pull the other one.
>
>> On openSUSE, which I use, it is as easy as getting the source, configuring
>> the options for devices and debugging, and the issuing the commands 'make'
>> and 'sudo make modules_install install' and a new kernel is built and
>> installed.
>
> That works on Debian too, given suitable sudo configuration; but there's
> always "su -". (I prefer "fakeroot make-kpkg kernel-image"; I get a .deb to
> install.)
>
>> When Ubuntu has a kernel with version number 2.6.25.2 or later, your
>> interface should work "out of the box" except for the firmware.
>
> You'd have to check the changelog for that, since they'll have 2.6.25-N with
> a changelog entry which says something like "Update to 2.6.25.2.".
> (/usr/share/doc/kernel-image-2.6.25-*/changelog.Debian.gz)
>
> BTW, how do you know what fixes will be in 2.6.25.2? ;-)

I'm prescient, and I'm part of the bcm43xx developer group. The
patches in question have already been submitted to -stable. They will
likely be in 2.6.25.1, but certainly be in .2.

Larry