Native Airport Extreme Drivers

marxin · n00b Joined: 28 Oct 2005 Posts: 28

I emerged ieee80211softmac and bcm43xx [both version 20060125], after that I upraged kernel(without ieee80211 in kernel support), than I build kernel firmware with fwcutter -w /lib/firmware with this file: wl_apsta.o 3.130.20.0. After reboot is working iwlist eth1 regulary, I set essid and it see my AP, but dmesg is writeing this error:

Akaihiryuu · l33t Joined: 08 May 2003 Posts: 794 Location: Columbus, OH

Exact same problem I'm having. I haven't found a solution either, even using the latest snapshots.

bz31 · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 20 Apr 2005 Posts: 108

andy753421 · n00b Joined: 10 Dec 2004 Posts: 17

I've had the same problem as well (dhcpcd not working). However after using the latest snapshots from ftp://bu3sch.de/bcm43xx-snapshots/all-in-one/bcm43xx/ everything seemed to work better. (I used bcm43xx-060205__forlinux2.6.16-rc1__.patch.bz2) However, I haven't tried this with WEP, which seemed to be giving me problems earlier.

For those who want to try that (and don't want to look anywhere else to find instructions) it's pretty simple. emerge =vanilla-sources-2.6.16_rc1 then go to /usr/src/linux-2.6.16-rc1, download a patch file, uncompress it, and run patch -p0 < bcm43x<whatever>.patch After that all the bcm43xx stuff will be in the kernel, just make sure you have it set to compile bcm43xx and softmac, recompile and install.

Unfortunately my nvidia drivers wont compile against 2.6.16-r1 so I'll be waiting around until things get a little more stable.

marxin · n00b Joined: 28 Oct 2005 Posts: 28

I'm using gentoo-sources andI don't want to use vanilla_sources, so I have to wait for 2.6.16_r1 kernel. And I'm also using SOFTMAC to uprgade my firmware. So your solution is for me complicated ...

atomik · Posted: Sun Feb 05, 2006 1:38 pm Post subject:

thedopefishlives · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 23 Nov 2005 Posts: 84

As for using the devicescape version, I don't particularly want to go through the rather tall order of making a backup kernel, patching it, fiddling around with the sta_up.sh script - if it could be done as an ebuild like the SoftMAC version, and it compiled against my gentoo-sources kernel instead of being a different kernel ebuild, I'd probably go for it. As it is, I know the SoftMAC version can and does work in certain circumstances - I just have to figure out what they are.

scoobydu · Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2006 2:23 pm Post subject:

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

No you can't, windows won't allow you to capture the management packets which is what we're interested in here.
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atomik · Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2006 4:25 pm Post subject:

scoobydu · Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2006 4:41 pm Post subject:

thedopefishlives · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 23 Nov 2005 Posts: 84

It appears to me that, in the caseof wpa_supplicant, it doesn't recognize when the driver is trying to communicate an event. For example, it sends a "scan finished" event to wpa_supplicant, but wpa_supplicant says "Scan timeout". Similarly, it reports a custom wireless event "associated", but it says "Authentication with 00:00:00:00:00:00 timed out." I'm wondering if there's something different about the bcm43xx driver that requires modification to wpa_supplicant to work. I'm going to poke about and see if there's even a remote chance I'm right.

thedopefishlives · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 23 Nov 2005 Posts: 84

Attached to this post is a link to a wpa_supplicant patch that has my (admittedly barebones) bcm43xx wpa_supplicant driver. See, the bcm43xx driver uses wpa_supplicant's "Custom Event" interface to deliver its data. However, the standard wext driver doesn't handle any of these custom events, hence no real working wpa_supplicant functionality. I, in essence, created a bcm43xx driver that intercepts the "authenticated", "associated", and "scan finished" events; it also handles the latter two events, informing wpa_supplicant that the scan has finished and that the driver has associated to the AP. It does work, as I'm writing using the modified wpa_supplicant right now, but I'm not sure what features may be missing that I need to handle. If you'd like to test it, download the patch and patch it against wpa_supplicant 0.5.1, and run with at least the following options:

tanawana · n00b Joined: 03 Nov 2004 Posts: 8 Location: youngstown, OH

Can I have a little help -

I am trying to follow the directions on the first page with the ebuilds but I don't understand what to do under the "USING SOFTMAC" part. It says "read the fwcutter READ ME", but where is it?? Better yet, it says use any driver listed. Where would I get this listing or the driver?? the emerge bcm43xx went fine till this point.

What am I missing here or how do I get past this??

sul3n3t · n00b Joined: 11 Jun 2003 Posts: 10

I have a Compaq V2424NR amd64 laptop with integrated broadcom BCM4318. After updating to the 1/25 ebuilds, my laptop completely freezes upon "ifconfig eth1 up". I'm not expecting a quick solution or anything, but I haven't heard of this happening yet. Also, I don't know how to debug this. So it goes.

I have then following packages installed with default configuration:
net-wireless/bcm43xx-0.0.1-r20060125
net-wireless/ieee80211softmac-0.1-r20060125
sys-kernel/gentoo-sources-2.6.15-r1
sys-apps/hotplug-20040923-r1
sys-apps/coldplug-20040920
sys-fs/udev-084

Coldplug starts at boot.
Firmware: bcmwl564.sys version: 3.100.64.10
I've tried several drivers previously. I believe hotplug/coldplug is setup correctly.
Thanks.

zeuss1414 · Guru Joined: 23 Mar 2004 Posts: 490

combellus · Posted: Tue Feb 07, 2006 4:50 pm Post subject: Thanks everybody !!!

Saturday, I've compiled my new kernel (2.6.15) and merge bcm43xx package...

All working fine at the first time, it's very cool.

Thanks, you're very very great....

PS : Very good tutorial

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Akaihiryuu · l33t Joined: 08 May 2003 Posts: 794 Location: Columbus, OH

Did you have to do anything special to make it work? I've never been able to associate with an AP with the 20060125 package (the latest one in Portage). The Gentoo net.xxx scripts didn't work for it, but even trying it manually got me nowhere. From what I understand, 20060125 is the last version that will be distributed separately from the kernel. It looks like all of the newer versions take the form of kernel patches for 2.6.16-r1. I really don't want to switch to ~x86 for my kernel, so it looks like I'm going to be stuck with ndiswrapper for a bit longer. I'd be happy if I could get the Portage version to work (I'm currently using vanilla-sources-2.6.15.1), but it looks like that driver is still too incomplete to work for me. I hope that either a newer version is provided in the Portage tree soon, or that the driver gets integrated into the mainstream kernel soon.

damoncf · Guru Joined: 05 Oct 2004 Posts: 388 Location: US OH

e-ipi · Apprentice Joined: 23 Aug 2005 Posts: 192

fuoco · Guru Joined: 23 May 2004 Posts: 386 Location: Israel

Once I do:

e-ipi · Apprentice Joined: 23 Aug 2005 Posts: 192

Havin_it · Posted: Fri Feb 10, 2006 1:28 am Post subject:

I'm just trying to script my kernel-updates, but of course this is now involving re-merging ieee80211softmac and bcm43xx. I have hit a problem in attempting this, though: The modules don't install correctly because the ebuilds target the currently-running kernel, not the just-installed one.

This is as it should be of course, but the result is, a reboot is required before the packages can be re-merged and the network restored.

So: is there a way my script can specify for them to be installed against the newly-built kernel instead of the current one? Something like:

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

It should build against the kernel linked to /usr/src/linux are you sure that you're changing the link?
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mellowgreengiant · Posted: Fri Feb 10, 2006 4:27 am Post subject: