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    KNetworkManager couldn't "see" b43 card after kernel upgrade

    Hi,

    When I first installed Hardy on my gf's old laptop a couple of weeks ago, the Broadcom 4306-based card worked like a dream with KNetworkManager. (This pleased me greatly, as I'd had to give up on the same model of card for my Gentoo box a while ago.)

    However, when I did the update run a couple of days ago -- including, IIRC, the 2.6.24-17 kernel -- after rebooting I found that KNM reported "no network card found". b43 was correctly loaded and I didn't see any problems in dmesg, but KNM was blank. Oddly, though, in the Manual Configuration dialogue, wlan0 would be listed and could be configured, though this still meant I couldn't connect to our WPA router.

    I did a "iwlist wlan0 scan" which returned "no scan results"; instantly, so I don't think it even tried to scan.

    I removed kernel-2.6.24-17 and rebooted back to 2.6.24-16, and everything worked fine again.

    I'd like some diagnosis on this. Could this have been due to having two kernels installed at once, or is is more likely that the new kernel doesn't like me? Going back to my Gentoo experience with this card, b43 never worked for me there. The old bcm43xx driver had worked, but this was removed from the stock 2.6.24 Gentoo kernel. I'm rather worried that some patch has just arrived in 2.6.24-17 that'll make the card as useless here as it had become on Gentoo. Any ideas?

    #2
    Re: KNetworkManager couldn't "see" b43 card after kernel upgrade

    Hi linxuser, thanks for the reply.

    I was using the b43 driver successfully on kernel 2.6.24-16, so the issue you're having is probably something rather different (especially with the other symptoms you mentioned there). I'll certainly have another look at my logs for any microcode errors though.

    Hope you have some luck with your problem.

    Comment


      #3
      Re: KNetworkManager couldn't "see" b43 card after kernel upgrade

      I'm using the Broadcom b43 drivers as well and was affected by the kernel upgrade just like Havin_it. You can just copy your /lib/firmware/2.6.24-16-generic/b43 directory to /lib/firmware/2.6.24-17-generic or you can install the firmware cutter and cut the object, so it can be loaded at bootup. I would suggest doing the latter, as it's an educational experience.

      http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Dr...43andb43legacy

      Hope this helps

      Comment


        #4
        Re: KNetworkManager couldn't "see" b43 card after kernel upgrade

        I put the firmware in /lib/firmware/b43 IIRC...

        Anyway, I don't think location of the firmware is the issue, as I'm seeing no errors in dmesg about them not being found, and the LEDs are coming on.

        I think tomorrow I'll try installing 2.6.24-17 again, and actually remove 2.6.24-16 to see if I get better results with only one kernel installed. If I still get no joy I guess I'll try ndiswrapper. This had stopped working with the card under Gentoo as well (round about version 1.49) but maybe it'll be more successful with Kubuntu.

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          #5
          Re: KNetworkManager couldn't "see" b43 card after kernel upgrade

          I installed linux-i686 today, and after reboot all is well! Not sure what the problem was, but perhaps it was to do with the firmware, which I copied from the Gentoo box. This time, I also installed the b43-fwcutter tool and ran it -- by the way, very impressive how Adept actually grabs and cuts the firmware as well!

          I do seem to recall that there were successive versions of fwcutter that were incompatible with each other, so maybe this is the reason. Anyway, solved now; happy face.

          BTW, what is the normal procedure with kernel upgrades? Will kernel-i686 pull in all new kernels/modules when they come out, and do older installed ones eventually get removed or is this done manually? If so, which package(s) should be removed?

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