Re: F10 nightmare under control

[Arne Chr. Jorgensen]

>  > Can I replace the card with something Fedora support ? 
>
>  Yes, there are cards supported by entirely free drivers. If you can find
>  one which uses the ZyDAS ZD1211 chipset, that's a good one, I have one
>  of those and it works very well with the free zd1211rw driver.
>  
How would this be supported ?  

The hardware is a HP-compac 6715b, with network chipset from Broadcom.
In some previous release of Fedora, I tried to get it working with
Bcm43xx, but had to compile my own driver. Something I failed doing,
some libraries or headers was not in the release.Frequent updates of 
packages drowned me.

Adam Williamson wrote:
- " wl is a proprietary module and is not part of Fedora, hence your 
problem is unlikely to be addressed on this list :) "

I was unaware that Broadcom had any driver for Linux. I was certain I 
was running some precompiled b43-module. To patch/compile - make your 
own version, is too demanding. And your left on some different page
then the rest. 

So, with the other chipset, would you get wireless "out-of-the-box"
with Fedora ? 

//ARNE

F10 nightmare under control

[Adam Williamson]

On Wed, 2009-04-29 at 04:28 -0700, Arne Chr. Jorgensen wrote:
>  > > Can I replace the card with something Fedora support ? 
>  >
>  > Yes, there are cards supported by entirely free drivers. If you can find
>  > one which uses the ZyDAS ZD1211 chipset, that's a good one, I have one
>  > of those and it works very well with the free zd1211rw driver. 
>  So, with the other chipset, would you get wireless
> "out-of-the-box"
>  with Fedora ?  
Yes. With a ZD1211 chipset-based adapter wifi just works out of the box,
no configuration required besides clicking on NetworkManager to pick the
access point and enter the security password if necessary.

There's probably other chips that work this easily, but ZD1211 is the
one I've personally had the best experience with. I have several other
wireless chips that work, but they all require drivers from rpmfusion or
firmware or something.
-- 
Adam Williamson
Fedora QA Community Monkey
IRC: adamw | Fedora Talk: adamwill AT fedoraproject DOT org
http://www.happyassassin.net

F10 nightmare under control

[Bill Davidsen]

Arne Chr. Jorgensen wrote:
> >> Can I replace the card with something Fedora support ? 
> > Yes, there are cards supported by entirely free drivers. If you can find
> > one which uses the ZyDAS ZD1211 chipset, that's a good one, I have one
> > of those and it works very well with the free zd1211rw driver.
> >
>  
>  How would this be supported ?  
>  
>  The hardware is a HP-compac 6715b, with network chipset from Broadcom.
>  In some previous release of Fedora, I tried to get it working with
>  Bcm43xx, but had to compile my own driver. Something I failed doing,
>  some libraries or headers was not in the release.Frequent updates of 
>  packages drowned me.
>  
>  Adam Williamson wrote:
>  - " wl is a proprietary module and is not part of Fedora, hence your 
>  problem is unlikely to be addressed on this list :) "
>  
>  I was unaware that Broadcom had any driver for Linux. I was certain I 
>  was running some precompiled b43-module. To patch/compile - make your 
>  own version, is too demanding. And your left on some different page
>  then the rest. 
>  
>  So, with the other chipset, would you get wireless "out-of-the-box"
>  with Fedora ? 
>   
If "replace your hardware" is an acceptable solution, you would, at
least to the 
extent that any recent version using NetworkManager supports wireless. Another 
alternative is to use the ndiswrapper to run the Windows drivers, although 
people who have big budgets will tell you that's a bad thing.

-- 
Bill Davidsen <davidsen(a)tmr.com&gt;
   "We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from
the machinations of the wicked."  - from Slashdot

F10 nightmare under control

[Kevin Kofler]

Arne Chr. Jorgensen wrote:
>  The hardware is a HP-compac 6715b, with network chipset from
> Broadcom.
>  In some previous release of Fedora, I tried to get it working with
>  Bcm43xx, but had to compile my own driver. Something I failed doing,
>  some libraries or headers was not in the release.Frequent updates of
>  packages drowned me.
>  
>  Adam Williamson wrote:
>  - " wl is a proprietary module and is not part of Fedora, hence your
>  problem is unlikely to be addressed on this list :) "
>  
>  I was unaware that Broadcom had any driver for Linux. I was certain I
>  was running some precompiled b43-module. To patch/compile - make your
>  own version, is too demanding. And your left on some different page
>  then the rest. 
The b43 driver is part of Fedora. You need to follow the firmware
installation instructions to get it to work. (Basically, you have to
download a specific version of the Broadcom proprietary driver (I think
they expect a MIPS binary from OpenWRT, not the x86 version you're using,
the instructions give the exact link) and run b43-fwcutter on it (which
will extract the firmware out of the binary).)

        Kevin Kofler