Cards with a Broadcom chipset

If you have a Broadcom chipset in your card and it does not connect automatically when you boot, then you should try the following methods until it works:

• Check on the General tab of Network Assistant (see Section 5.4 ) whether you want to use Ndiswrapper and the pre-loaded Windows drivers or not.
  • If you have a more recent Broadcom chip that is bcm4318 or higher, you should enable Ndiswrapper (default) if not already enabled. MEPIS Linux 7.0 includes the latest Windows Broadcom drivers with Ndiswrapper.
  • Older Broadcom chips may also work with Ndiswrapper without any effort on your part. If not, you should use the native bcm43xx driver. Disable Ndiswrapper with the Network Assistant and reboot. MEPIS Linux 7.0 pre-installs the most recent Broadcom firmware that should work with any chip compatible with the bcm43xx driver.
• Whether you use Ndiswrapper or the native driver, if you still have trouble, look for any competing (i.e., those for which device is present) Ndiswrapper drivers by entering as root:

  ndiswrapper -l
  

  and remove them one at a time:

  ndiswrapper -e nameofdriver
  

• If using the native driver and still having trouble, try to manually remove Ndiswrapper by entering on a command line as root:

  rmmod ndiswrapper
  modprobe bcm43xx
  

• If using Ndiswrapper, sometimes the native driver for Broadcom 43xx cards and winmodems interferes with normal operation of wlan0 (Ndiswrapper). If it does, it needs to be blacklisted. To do this, you will need to edit a file as root.
  • Click KMenu --> System --> MEPIS --> File_Manager_-_Super_User_Mode and supply the root password.
  • Enter /etc/modprobe.d/ in the address bar, click open, then double click the file blacklist to open it.
  • Add these lines (including a remark such as the one below to indicate why you are doing this):

    # Interferes with Ndiswrapper
    blacklist bcm43xx
    

  • Save and exit.
  • Then launch the MEPIS Network Assistant and follow the directions in Section 5.7.1: Basic Steps.
• Sometimes you have to remove the all Windows drivers and then reinstall the most recent one for your card.
  • Start by removing all drivers one at a time by typing as root:

    ndiswrapper -e drivername
    

  • Reinstall the broadcom driver from scratch: use your oringinal driver software, or download from the Ndiswrapper project page linked below. Make sure that all the driver files (*.inf, *.sys, etc.) are all in the same location, then as root, type:

    modprobe ndiswrapper
    ndiswrapper -i nameofdriver.inf
    

NOTE: This chipset will also block the operation of Knetworkmanager with unencrypted networks, leaving the application hanging at “28%.” This is a known bug.

Links and Guides

• Ndiswrapper project home page: http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/mediawiki/index.php/List
• Cards known to work with Ndiswrapper:
  http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/joomla/index.php? /component/option,com_openwiki/Itemid,33/id,list/
• Ndiswrapper Wiki: http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/mediawiki/index.php/Main_Page

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