bcm43xx steps on ndiswrapper

[Patrick von der Hagen]

Steven Haigh schrieb:
> Quoting James <jdickson at cimtel.net>:
>> Thanks.. I would love to use the bcm43xx module but it is flaky at best
>> on my Dell Latitude D800.. ndiswrapper works really well.
> 
> I have the same on my Inspiron 8600. The rest of the machine works 
I'll probably find some time at the weekend to finally file bug-reports 
related to bcm43xx.

Strangely engough the only three people reporting problems related to 
bcm43xx are all running Dell-laptops, so I wonder whether that might be 
related.

I'd be happy if I could get some reports regarding bcm43xx so I can 
perhaps include them when doing bug-reports. So I'd like to ask all 
users running bcm43xx and Dell-laptops to send me some information 
off-list, at least product-name and "works", "doesn't work", but of 
course it would be better with additional information like lspci-output.

But of course, every other reports on hardware using bcm43xx will be 
very welcome, too. ;-)

The problems I've seen so far:
- crash when starting NetworkManager
- crash when using NetworkManager to connect to a wlan
- crash when using wpa_supplicant to connect to a wlan
- crashes when being connected to my lan and not using wlan at all (last 
syslog-messages are related to some reinitialisation of the bcm43xx-module)

Finally I'd like to point out...
- I first tried bcm43xx when it was experimental and not included in the 
standard-kernel
- Stability on my laptop has not improved, so I had no reason to 
consider it anything but experimental. I have not realized that
others had more success running that driver.
- bcm43xx seems to change with every new fedora-kernel so I believed 
"someone is currently working at bcm43xx, so they know there are 
problems". That's why I did not file bug-reports regarding my problems.
- I do run the official Dell-firmware for my Precision M60 in Europe. 
This is a firmware which the bcm43xx-fwcutter-Readme approves as being 
successfully tested.
- I currently keep the last six fedora-kernels installed and so far at 
least one of them has always been able to successfully run start-up, 
while most lock up when starting NetworkManager and 
NetworkManagerDispatcher.

-- 
CU,
    Patrick.