167 wrote: > Hello. i'm a programmer that owns an HP pavilion which has a bcm 4319 > wireless card . > Here is the output of lspci -n : >> 06:02.0 0280: 14e4:4319 (rev 02) > i see in the "status" page that the driver for this card is under > development. I've written some programs in c under linux and i took some > courses about digital electronics at the university ,so i was asking > myself if kernel programming in linux is that hard and if i can > contribute to the project and help fixing the driver or help reverse > engineering the specs . If so , where do i start ? do you know some > good (free) book on kernel programming ?
Any kernel 2.6.21 or later should support the 4319, at least in B/G mode. I think that chip also supports 802.11a, but the driver does not. We are always happy for more help with fixes. The Documentation directory in the Linux source contains a good many files that describe parts of the kernel and how to submit patches. There is also a new facility (scripts/checkpatch.pl) that will check for problems in a patch. For information about kernel driver programming, see http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/gregkh/ddk/ for ISO images. To check for obvious problems keeping your driver from working, you should follow this checklist: 1. Is your kernel new enough? The output of 'uname -r' will tell you. If your kernel fails to match the criterion above, type the following two commands: wwget ftp://lwfinger.dynalias.org/patches/bcm43xx_get_driver sh ./bcm43xx_get_driver As long as you have the kernel headers and gcc installed, this will download and build the necessary drivers. 2. Is the firmware installed? You didn't say what Linux distro you use, but you need to install bcm43xx-fwcutter by using 'emerge', 'yum', 'YaST', or whatever is appropriate. Next you should wget ftp://lwfinger.dynalias.org/patches/bcm43xx_get_firmware sh ./bcm43xx_get_firmware Once those two steps are done, the driver should load and work. If you have problems, any further postings should include the output from a 'dmesg | grep bcm43xx' command. Larry _______________________________________________ Bcm43xx-dev mailing list [email protected] https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/bcm43xx-dev
