jeffrey franc-law wrote:
The chip has some crazy limitation: it can only DMA into memory
addresses below 1G (or something like this). Not documented by
Broadcom, but what is?
This was discovered two years ago. I think that ndiswrapper,
linuxant, and the native driver all were adjusted to reflect this. So
I am surprised that you are observing it now. Maybe you are observing
something else.
Here is the start of a thread about the problem
http://lists.pcxperience.com/pipermail/linuxr3000/2005-March/005085.html
SuSE 9.2 came out just before this. Could your linuxant driver be
older than the fix?
Thanks. I followed the forum, and simply passed the "mem=1024M" to
grub. I am only using 1024 of the 1280m of ram, but I think i'll just
tough it out: wireless works fine.
Obviously, I need to upgrade from the rather old suse 9.2, however, I
am using a VERY expensive piece of simulation software, my licence has
run out, and I really don't want to pay to renew it, and I'm sure I'd
have to do so if I reinstall on a different machine.
Thanks for the help.
ciao,
jfl
Jeffrey,
I submitted fixes to BOTH linuxant & ndiswrapper for this issue. Could
you send me the version info of ndiswrapper and/or linuxant that you're
using?
The mini-FAQ below has the specific versions that are known to work. If
you're reluctant to upgrade to a new version of ndiswrapper or
linuxant, I can help you out with a patch :)
... Like D. Hugh, I'm Canadian as well -- although I'm living in Boston,
MA (and now have a Green Card). I used to live in Calgary...
P.
Broadcom Wireless & 64-bit Linux FAQ
1.0 Introduction
2.0 Broadcom & Linux
3.0 Why doesn't the Microsoft driver just work?
4.0 How was the Microsoft driver fixed?
5.0 What versions of ndiswrapper and linuxant work?
6.0 How do I install ndiswrapper/linuxant?
1.0 Introduction
I've noticed a few people here and there requesting information on how
to get the Broadcom Wireless card working with 64-bit Linux (x86_64).
This is a quick overview of how to do it.
2.0 Broadcom & Linux
For their own reasons, Broadcom does not support or release Linux drivers.
This has forced users to resort to two Microsoft driver wrapper programs
one of which is GPL, ndiswrapper, and one which is proprietary.
3.0 Why doesn't the Microsoft driver just work?
The Broadcom Wireless card is a 30-bit card, and only supports 1G
addressing. ndiswrapper and linuxant both assume 32-bit addressing
on the card which results in DMA access hangs when the card attempts
to DMA to an address above 1G. This bug typically manifests itself as
a system hang.
4.0 How was the Microsoft driver fixed?
It wasn't -- Microsoft isn't open source remember? In May 2005,
Prarit Bhargava presented patches to both ndiswrapper and linuxant
so that the Broadcom Wireless would work the 64-bit systems. The
patches involved setting the DMA mask to force the card to DMA within
1G of memory.
5.0 What versions of ndiswrapper and linuxant work?
The latest CVS pull of ndiswrapper and ndiswrapper 1.2 should work.
Earlier versions of ndiswrapper do not work.
linuxant's driverloader 2.28 should contain a proper fix for the issue
as well.
6.0 How do I install ndiswrapper/linuxant?
The details of ndiswrapper and linuxant installations can be found
at http://http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/ and http://www.ndiswrapper.com.
_______________________________________________
LinuxR3000 mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.pcxperience.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/linuxr3000
Wiki at http://prinsig.se/weekee/
