Comment 15 for bug 276980

Revision history for this message
Tom Dunham (dunham402) wrote : Re: [Bug 276980] Re: ndiswrapper bcm4306 rev 2 won't connect regression

Yes after loading Ubuntu 9.10, i was able to get the B43legacy driver to work very well.  I'm not sure how 9.10 fixed it, but it did.

Thank you.
Tom Dunham

________________________________
From: Przemysław Kulczycki <email address hidden>
To: <email address hidden>
Sent: Thu, April 8, 2010 10:05:27 AM
Subject: [Bug 276980] Re: ndiswrapper bcm4306 rev 2 won't connect regression

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make
Ubuntu better. We are sorry that we do not always have the capacity to
look at all reported bugs in a timely manner. There have been many
changes in Ubuntu since that time you reported the bug and your problem
may have been fixed with some of the updates. If you could test the
current Ubuntu development version (10.04), this would help us a lot. If
you can test it, and it is still an issue, we would appreciate if you
could upload updated logs by running apport-collect 276980, and any
other logs that are relevant for this particular issue.

Also please note that your card should be supported by the b43 driver, so you should try it first. However, this driver requires you to download the firmware either by installing b43-fwcutter while having an ethernet connection, or by downloading the firmware manually and then running b43-fwcutter on it.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/Driver/bcm43xx#Installing%20BCM43xx%20drivers

** Changed in: ndiswrapper (Ubuntu)
      Status: New => Incomplete

--
ndiswrapper bcm4306 rev 2 won't connect regression
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/276980
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of the bug.

Status in “ndiswrapper” package in Ubuntu: Incomplete

Bug description:
Starting from a live CD boot.  I follow what I believe to be the correct procedure for getting the BCM4306 rev 2 wifi running with ndiswrapper.
- kill NetworkManager
- rmmod b43legacy and ssb
- install ndiswrapper-common and ndiswrapper-utils-1.9
- ndiswrapper -i bcmwl5.inf
- modprobe ndiswrapper
- wait a little
- run NetworkManager
- wait a little
- iwconfig shows that wlan0 is up
- iwlist wlan0 scan shows that it sees the AP
- click the detected AP in the NetworkManager icon
- it prompts for password
- enter password
- NetworkManager icon spins with one green spot (the bottom one)
- 25 second later it prompts for password again
- REPEAT ...
- it never connects

This works fine under Gutsy (rmmod'ing bcm43xx instead of b43legacy and ssb and using interface eth1 instead of wlan0), but not Hardy or Intrepid (alpha 5-6 are the only ones I have tested).

The following is the exact session that I used under Intrepid Alpha 6:

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo su
root@ubuntu:/home/ubuntu# pkill NetworkManager
root@ubuntu:/home/ubuntu# rmmod b43legacy ssb
root@ubuntu:/home/ubuntu# lsmod | grep b4
root@ubuntu:/home/ubuntu# lsmod | grep ssb
root@ubuntu:/home/ubuntu# apt-get install ndiswrapper-common ndiswrapper-utils-1.9
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Suggested packages:
  ndiswrapper-source
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  ndiswrapper-common ndiswrapper-utils-1.9
0 upgraded, 2 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B/55.4kB of archives.
After this operation, 225kB of additional disk space will be used.
Selecting previously deselected package ndiswrapper-common.
(Reading database ... 101650 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking ndiswrapper-common (from .../ndiswrapper-common_1.52-1ubuntu1_all.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package ndiswrapper-utils-1.9.
Unpacking ndiswrapper-utils-1.9 (from .../ndiswrapper-utils-1.9_1.52-1ubuntu1_i386.deb) ...
Processing triggers for man-db ...
Setting up ndiswrapper-common (1.52-1ubuntu1) ...
Setting up ndiswrapper-utils-1.9 (1.52-1ubuntu1) ...
root@ubuntu:/home/ubuntu# mkdir t
root@ubuntu:/home/ubuntu# mount /dev/sda9 t
root@ubuntu:/home/ubuntu# cd t/home/cliff/bcm43xx/
root@ubuntu:/home/ubuntu/t/home/cliff/bcm43xx# ndiswrapper -i bcmwl5.inf
installing bcmwl5 ...
forcing parameter IBSSGMode from 0 to 2
forcing parameter IBSSGMode from 0 to 2
forcing parameter IBSSGMode from 0 to 2
forcing parameter IBSSGMode from 0 to 2
forcing parameter IBSSGMode from 0 to 2
forcing parameter IBSSGMode from 0 to 2
forcing parameter IBSSGMode from 0 to 2
forcing parameter IBSSGMode from 0 to 2
root@ubuntu:/home/ubuntu/t/home/cliff/bcm43xx# modprobe ndiswrapper
root@ubuntu:/home/ubuntu/t/home/cliff/bcm43xx# NetworkManager
root@ubuntu:/home/ubuntu/t/home/cliff/bcm43xx# iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

wlan0    IEEE 802.11g  ESSID:off/any
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.462 GHz  Access Point: Not-Associated
          Bit Rate:54 Mb/s  Tx-Power:25 dBm
          RTS thr:2347 B  Fragment thr:2346 B
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality:0  Signal level:0  Noise level:0
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0  Missed beacon:0

root@ubuntu:/home/ubuntu/t/home/cliff/bcm43xx# iwlist wlan0 scan
wlan0    Scan completed :
          Cell 01 - Address: 00:0F:A3:17:56:48
                    ESSID:"CliffsWifi"
                    Protocol:IEEE 802.11b
                    Mode:Managed
                    Frequency:2.412 GHz (Channel 1)
                    Quality:78/100  Signal level:-46 dBm  Noise level:-96 dBm
                    Encryption key:on
                    Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s; 6 Mb/s
                              12 Mb/s; 24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s
                              48 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s
                    Extra:bcn_int=100
                    Extra:atim=0
                    IE: IEEE 802.11i/WPA2 Version 1
                        Group Cipher : TKIP
                        Pairwise Ciphers (1) : TKIP
                        Authentication Suites (1) : PSK
                      Preauthentication Supported
                    IE: WPA Version 1
                        Group Cipher : TKIP
                        Pairwise Ciphers (1) : TKIP
                        Authentication Suites (1) : PSK

root@ubuntu:/home/ubuntu/t/home/cliff/bcm43xx# uname -a
Linux ubuntu 2.6.27-3-generic #1 SMP Wed Sep 10 16:02:00 UTC 2008 i686 GNU/Linux

<<< handwritten comments follow >>>
click on NetworkManager icon and select CliffsWifi
"Wireless Network Secrets Required" window pops up
enter password in window
25 second pause while NetworkManager icon does it's spinning around
with just the bottom spot green
"Wireless Network Secrets Required" comes back up
loops like this forever

I have done all this testing with the various live CD versions to keep it clean.
What you see here is ALL that was done after a boot of Intrepid Alpha 6 live CD.

I can do the exact same steps in Gutsy (except the module to rmmod is bcm43xx,
not ssb and b43legacy and the interface is eth1 not wlan0) and it works fine.

Hardy is also broken the same way, so this has been broken for a whole year.
I recall reading somewhere on the forums that this problem won't be fixed in Hardy
and that the developers want to know if Intrepid Alpha 5 fixed it.  Well it
didn't, and neither did Alpha 6

I have tried all the suggestions on the forums, and this is the distillation
to prove that it is still broken.

ssb / b32legacy is way too slow, I must use ndiswrapper.  Yes I know how to
jack the speed up from 1M to 54M with iwconfig.  That is not the issue.

This works fine in Gutsy but is broken in Hardy and Intrepid.

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