Native Airport Extreme Drivers (part 2)

Sodki · Posted: Thu May 10, 2007 8:36 am Post subject:

Wow! Larry's patches really make all the difference. I can now use my iBook properly, without having the connection dropping every few minutes. A BIG thank you for everyone involved in this.

RayDude · Posted: Sun May 13, 2007 7:24 pm Post subject:

Has anyone gotten the BCM 4328 to work with this driver?

I got this feeling its not recognized because dmesg is very sparse.

JoseJX · Retired Dev Joined: 28 Apr 2002 Posts: 2774

Sorry, I haven't finished writing specs for the pre-N cards yet, it's not supported at this time.
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gigs94 · n00b Joined: 06 Aug 2004 Posts: 52 Location: DC

Is the bcm4309 chipset supported? The bcm43xx site shows that it's partially supported (everything except 802.11a). I have a Dell D600 that I run ndiswrapper without any issues, but have been trying to get the bcm43xx code working. I can connect and associate, but by the time that it tries dhcpcd it's gone. I have just tried 2.6-21 with larry's patches but I get the same results I was getting with out the patches.

koprimer · n00b Joined: 29 Feb 2004 Posts: 64

Hey, I just recently updated to gentoo-sources-2.6.20-r8 with Larry's combined_2.6.20.7.patch, now my wifi seems to get disconnected quite often and is then unable to obtain a new IP. I have to manually run

koprimer · n00b Joined: 29 Feb 2004 Posts: 64

If anyone else is having problems with disconnects, using a static IP instead of DHCP seems to work well as a workaround. The interface seems to constantly re associate, but the connection doesn't break for very long.

Unfortunately not all routers allow static connections, such as my university.

psihodelia · n00b Joined: 27 Dec 2006 Posts: 15

butane317 · n00b Joined: 26 Jan 2006 Posts: 55

I've got the Airport Extreme on my iBook G4 4318 working perfectly following the directions on the first page of this topic. Thanks so much!!! That was the last thing I needed to get working on here.

You made my day.
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JoseJX · Retired Dev Joined: 28 Apr 2002 Posts: 2774

psihodelia:
koprimer:

Make sure that you are using the latest patchset. If you're still having problems, try turning down the speed, it gets more reliable at lower speeds. The transmission power problems still haven't been 100% fixed, so in a noisy environment (like at university), the slower the better. Personally, I usually try connecting at 11M first. If that doesn't work, 1M usually works if the signal is adequate.

The reason why DHCP is failing is that the DHCP request or reply is getting lost. Dropping the speed usually fixes this.

gigs46:
It should work with 802.11b/g routers. Try setting your speed lower like psihodelia and koprimer. If it's still not working, please report it to upstream so st3 can take a look at it (he did the 4309 patches).
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Sedrik · Posted: Fri May 25, 2007 8:30 am Post subject:

JoseJX · Retired Dev Joined: 28 Apr 2002 Posts: 2774

To set the rate to 1M:
# iwconfig ethX rate 1M
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Sedrik · Posted: Fri May 25, 2007 2:46 pm Post subject:

I take it that it will last till the next time I start the driver?
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JoseJX · Retired Dev Joined: 28 Apr 2002 Posts: 2774

It depends on the stack. SoftMAC will reset it whenever the connection is reset (including reconnect after a dropped connection). Mac80211 will set the rate automatically despite whatever you set it to.
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Sedrik · Posted: Wed May 30, 2007 6:00 pm Post subject:

How is the new kernel working? (21.2)

Any improvements to 20.0? Since there are no new patches are there any improvements made or should I wait with updating?
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Sedrik · Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2007 4:21 pm Post subject:

I decided to give wpa a new go again (I wounder how long it will take me to get this working).

I start the device fine with /etc/conf.d/net start and connect to wpa_supplicant with wpa_cli for debbuging.

This is the output I get from my access point.

druha · Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2007 9:18 pm Post subject:

Any news on 432x support?

ONEEYEMAN · Advocate Joined: 01 Mar 2005 Posts: 3604

Hi, ALL,
I'm happy to report that I have a working DELL 1390 (bcm4311) card with the bcm43xx over the wireless-tools.
I'm using gentoo-sources 2.6.20 stable on x86 build with Larry's patchset for 2.6.21.

Everything works as expected.

Thank you., all.

JoseJX · Retired Dev Joined: 28 Apr 2002 Posts: 2774

druha:
The specs are close to being done, but nobody is working on the code for it yet. The stack itself (mac80211) needs some work as well, so either way, it's some ways off.
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dgulotta · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 09 Jan 2006 Posts: 88

I've had some problems with my iBook recently and I'm wondering if there is a chance it could be caused by the bcm43xx wireless drivers. The first time I had my laptop repaired, the guy from whom I picked it up said he wasn't sure what was fixed but he thought it might have been the logic board. The second time, the logic board and wireless card were replaced. Should I worry that these problems might be caused by using wireless on Linux?

JoseJX · Retired Dev Joined: 28 Apr 2002 Posts: 2774

dgulotta:
What kind of problems? It is *extremely* unlikely that bcm43xx has anything to do with hardware issues though.
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piroko · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 25 Aug 2006 Posts: 77

I just have a quick question concerning the bcm4318. From my experience, I have immense connection problems with distant access points if I have my rate set to 24M, per default. If I switch it to 11M using iwconfig eth3 rate 11M, it works perfectly. The only problem is when my card has to re-associate and the rate gets changed back to 24M automatically. To combat this, I just run

emerald · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 31 Jul 2005 Posts: 113

Sedrik · Posted: Wed Jul 04, 2007 10:28 pm Post subject:

gave it another try and it is still failing at the 4-way handshake

Might be my router that is failing me (d-link), will try to see if it works at my friends home. Thanks anyway =)
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JoseJX · Retired Dev Joined: 28 Apr 2002 Posts: 2774

piroko:
Something like this patch should be a better fix, it'll set the default to 11M instead of 24M. You could also change it to be 1M by changing the constants if you'd rather use that.
https://lists.berlios.de/pipermail/bcm43xx-dev/2007-May/004690.html

Sedrik:
Maybe check to make sure the crypto stuff required for your encryption is included in the kernel?
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Sedrik · Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2007 11:33 am Post subject: