Realtek RTL8139/810x F and Broadcom 802.11b/g WLAN

thehappypenguin · June 2009

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.

atreyu · June 2009

thehappypenguin wrote:

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.

Can you go into more detail about the problems you are experiencing? For example, what is the relevant output from:

dmesg
/var/log/messages
lspci
uname

iwconfig

thehappypenguin · June 2009

It is not detecting any wireless networks and if i plug in the Ethernet cable there is no recognition.

atreyu · June 2009

thehappypenguin wrote:

It is not detecting any wireless networks and if i plug in the Ethernet cable there is no recognition.

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:

ifconfig

Eg, I get the following output:

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:00:11:11:11:11  
          inet addr:192.168.1.4  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:862076 errors:0 dropped:39 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:2422236 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:89780594 (85.6 MiB)  TX bytes:3588500651 (3.3 GiB)
          Interrupt:10 Base address:0x8000 

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:7228 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:7228 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:1395404 (1.3 MiB)  TX bytes:1395404 (1.3 MiB)

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:

cat /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:

ethtool eth0

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.

Gossamer · June 2009

I know your pain. I run one of the first sony vaios to be released and I have to use a network card to access the internet. Well here's how I did it in Debian::

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.

---

Hope that helped
-Goss

thehappypenguin · June 2009

Thanks Gossamer, but how do i access the windows drivers from Mandriva?
And what do you mean by repositries (sorry, but I'm new to linux)

Gossamer · June 2009

thehappypenguin wrote:

Thanks Gossamer, but how do i access the windows drivers from Mandriva?
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.

woboyle · June 2009

thehappypenguin wrote:

Thanks Gossamer, but how do i access the windows drivers from Mandriva?
And what do you mean by repositries (sorry, but I'm new to linux)

With newer distributions such as yours, you do NOT want to run the ndiswrapper driver; however, you likely need to install the firmware for the card. This is found in the .sys file for your broadcom chipset. You can get it from your wireless installation disc or download it from broadcom's web site. After you do that, you need to extract the firmware components and install them in (usually) /lib/firmware. The tool to do that for Mandriva is found here: http://club.mandriva.com/xwiki/bin/view/rpms/Application/bcm43xx-fwcutter

thehappypenguin · June 2009

alright thanks for the help gossamer and rubbemaid

sfnightfire · August 2009

I ran into this problem on my Laptop with Fedora 11, with the b43 chipset..

What I did, was I used fwcutter, got the firmware and installed it that way, works amazingly..

Realtek RTL8139/810x F and Broadcom 802.11b/g WLAN

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