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Realtek RTL8139/810x F and Broadcom 802.11b/g WLAN
in Drivers
Hello, all. I recently started using linux and have discovered problems with the above devices. Are their any driver issues or what? I have linux Mandriva PowerPack Spring 2009.
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Can you go into more detail about the problems you are experiencing? For example, what is the relevant output from:
iwconfig
Let's start with wired ethernet. Open a terminal window. I'm not familiar with Mandriva, but there should be a shortcut in your menu bar somewhere. In the terminal window, run the following command to display your network devices:
Eg, I get the following output:
Here we see "eth0" which is my first ethernet (wired) network device, and "lo", the loopback device. If I had a wireless device, it might be listed as "wlan0", or "eth1", depending on the driver.
Also, check the contents of /proc/net/dev:
The first column on the left (Interfaces) lists your network devices detected.
If you do indeed see "eth0" from these commands, then try this command to detect your ethernet cable connection:
At the bottom of this output, you should see "Link detected: yes" if your ethernet cable is securely plugged in to your RJ-45 port and to a router/switch/cable model/whatever on the other side.
First and foremost, I had to locate the Windows Drivers. This was easy enough, now all I have to do is extract them using wine and rip out the .inf file that accompanies my wireless driver.
Got it.
You should see a file called bcm43xx.inf or bcmsomethingorother.inf... anything like that, it should be.... somewhat obvious.
Ok, now I need a program called "ndiswrapper", normally it can be built from module-assistant or acquired from whatever repository or method Mandriva uses.
Got it set up? good.
Now, cd to the location of the .inf file you extracted by running the .exe file for the driver.
Good, now run::
ndiswrapper -i *drivername*.inf
good, now do::
ndiswrapper -mi
or
ndiswrapper -m
This will write the module you just installed to your module section...
Well then, just one more thing; lets see if it worked.
run::
ndiswrapper -l
this will show you what drivers are installed and whether the hardware is recognized. If all is good, reboot. If all isn't consult someone else that knows more than I do.
After reboot, wifi-radar or whatever program you're using should be able to utilize the card so you can get online.
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Hope that helped
-Goss
And what do you mean by repositries (sorry, but I'm new to linux)
Actually, the same you would with Windows. As it turns out the broadcom drivers don't actually install, they just extract.
See windows would normally just let you locate the drivers via device manager, that location of course would be the place you extracted the files.
Basically this is the same-game. You go to broadcom's site, locate your hardware and download the driver for it. Then use wine to extract the files.
YOU DO happen to have a different card than I do, however the premise is still the same, ndiswrapper works on tons of hardware including stubborn old hardware and devices that aren't so Linux friendly.
What I did, was I used fwcutter, got the firmware and installed it that way, works amazingly..