[Bcm43xx-dev] Re: Bcm43xx-dev Powerbook 12"

[Tim Hewett]

Jon, Which distro do you intend to run? Whichever, make sure you build a 2.6.15 kernel for it. I have a 1.33GHz (late 2005) 12" G4 iBook running Yellow Dog Linux and am slowly creeping my way towards having something working but not quite there yet, however I may be able to help you get to a point where perhaps you may then be able to help me. Firstly building and installing fwcutter, softmac and the bcm43xx driver software is hassle free. You will probably find that fwcutter complains that there is a firmware which it can't extract from the AppleAirport2.kext extension, that may or may not be the cause of my current problems. Up to last night my blocking point was that the system had no eth1 interface to bring up and configure as a wireless device, that has been solved by adding a device using YDL's Network GUI. Then there was a problem where the bcm43xx device wasn't detected, subsequently I discovered that YDL's unintuitively-named kudzu tool would detect the hardware but only after the drivers had been loaded manually with make install. The hardware detection built into the boot up procedure seems to happen before these modules get loaded so it seems to have to force it to happen manually. Now that this has been done, these modules load automatically with each boot. This means I can now do 'ifup eth1' without any error, and 'iwconfig essid <SSID>' does something too, but there the trail ends for me for now. The problem now is that although both softmac and bcm43xx are sending reassuring messages to dmesg, no access points are being discovered even though my neighbour has a 54m one which has no access control or encryption on it at all, which OS X normally lists as one available to connect to - I have my own access point but it doesn't broadcast its existence and uses WPA2 security. The iwlist command won't work as its version is too old for the device, so it isn't possible to do a scan of available access points and I'm currently in "stand back and scratch chin" state. I hope that gives a few hints, if you get further than me (or if anyone else can help) then any hints would be gladly received. Regards, Tim. On 9 Jan 2006, at 11:00, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi folks, I've got a new Powerbook 12" turning up this week, so I'll want to try out a recent snapshot. To get me up and running quickly once it arrives[0], can anyone using this driver on similar hardware mail me (perhaps offlist) with anything they found fiddly getting it to work :-) I'm happy to hack on it too, but I'd love it if I can get up and running with something. I write a column in LU&D, appropriately titled "kernel hacking" (http://www.linuxuser.co.uk/) and will be writing about my experiences as well as about this project (because it's cool, yet another opportunity to extoll the virtues of just making specs public anyway), so if anyone would like to say a few soundbites then that'd be pretty cool too. Jon. [0] Gotta love the USPS. They sent it from Denver to a San Francisco hub before sending it transatlantic last night. Bah.