MX-15 "Fusion" on Dell Insprion 8600 - Wireless setup

conn.sk · posted: 2016-01-11 15:43

Hi,

I installed MX-15"Fusion" on Dell Inspiron 8600 (non pae).
For now I am loading from the usb drive.

I am able to load successfully and it connects using Ethernet.
I was not able to connect my wireless.

I did some research and was able to get the wireless to work by moving the"b43" driver to the non-blacklisted list.
But I feel that the connection is slow.
So would like to check if this is the correct solution.
I have attached multiple images for reference.

dolphin_oracle · posted: 2016-01-11 15:59

b43 is the correct driver. what is strange is that b43 should have been used by default and wl blacklisted by default. that part you are using is slow (802.11 g speeds only).

kmathern · posted: 2016-01-11 16:12

Post the output of

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inxi -Nxxx

It will show the pciid, then I can doublecheck to see if it's included in the list of devices that the /usr/local/bin/BroadcomStartup script blacklists the wl driver for.

dolphin_oracle · 11 Jan 2016, 16:40 #4 2016-01-11 16:40

kmathern wrote:Post the output of
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inxi -Nxxx
It will show the pciid, then I can doublecheck to see if it's included in the list of devices that the /usr/local/bin/BroadcomStartup script blacklists the wl driver for.

one of his photos shows the part in broadcom-manager. 14e4:4320

kmathern · posted: 2016-01-11 17:01

dolphin_oracle wrote:...one of his photos shows the part in broadcom-manager. 14e4:4320

Thanks, I only checked the inxi -F photo. The 14e4:4320 id is included, but maybe some of the assumptions of what I thought the output would look like are incorrect (the"can someone verify?" lines)

@conn.sk, instead of the inxi output that I asked for earlier could you post the output of this?

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lspci -vnn -d 14e4:

edit:
I think maybe the"lspci -vnn -d 14e4:" in lines 121 & 127 of the BroadcomStartup script should be changed to this"lspci -vnn -d 14e4:4320"
and in lines 136 & 142 they should be changed to"lspci -vnn -d 14e4:4324"

Shay · posted: 2016-01-11 17:37

Running into the same problem on my persistence USB. Have to uninstall wl and install b43 everytime.
Dell Inspiron D630

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demo@mx1:~
$ inxi -Nxxx
Network:   Card-1: Broadcom NetXtreme BCM5755M Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express
           driver: tg3 v: 3.137 bus-ID: 09:00.0 chip-ID: 14e4:1673
           Card-2: Broadcom BCM4321 802.11a/b/g/n
           driver: b43-pci-bridge bus-ID: 0c:00.0 chip-ID: 14e4:4328

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demo@mx1:~
$ lspci -vnn -s 0c:00.0
0c:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4321 802.11a/b/g/n [14e4:4328] (rev 03)
    Subsystem: Dell Wireless 1500 Draft 802.11n WLAN Mini-card [1028:000a]
    Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 17
    Memory at f6cfc000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
    Memory at f0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=1M]
    Capabilities: <access denied>
    Kernel driver in use: b43-pci-bridge

AntiX-15 picks up the b43-pci-bridge right away.

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inxi -F
System:    Host: mx1 Kernel: 4.2.0-0.bpo.1-amd64 x86_64 (64 bit)
           Desktop: Xfce 4.12.2 Distro: MX-15_x64 Fusion 24 December 2015
Machine:   System: Dell product: Latitude D630

kmathern · posted: 2016-01-11 18:12

Shay wrote:Running into the same problem on my persistence USB. Have to uninstall wl and install b43 everytime.
Dell Inspiron D630

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demo@mx1:~
$ inxi -Nxxx
Network:   Card-1: Broadcom NetXtreme BCM5755M Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express
           driver: tg3 v: 3.137 bus-ID: 09:00.0 chip-ID: 14e4:1673
           Card-2: Broadcom BCM4321 802.11a/b/g/n
           driver: b43-pci-bridge bus-ID: 0c:00.0 chip-ID: 14e4:4328

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demo@mx1:~
$ lspci -vnn -s 0c:00.0
0c:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4321 802.11a/b/g/n [14e4:4328] (rev 03)
    Subsystem: Dell Wireless 1500 Draft 802.11n WLAN Mini-card [1028:000a]
    Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 17
    Memory at f6cfc000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
    Memory at f0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=1M]
    Capabilities: <access denied>
    Kernel driver in use: b43-pci-bridge

Right now the BroadcomStartup script blacklists the wl driver and unblacklists the b43 (or b43legacy) driver for the devices highlighted in green & yellow here:
========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://linuxwireless.sipsolutions.net/en/users/Drivers/b43/"
linktext was:"http://linuxwireless.sipsolutions.net/e ... ivers/b43/"
====================================
that don't list wl as an alternative. That's why you have to do it manually for your 14e4:4328 device (which lists wl as an alternate).

Shay wrote:AntiX-15 picks up the b43-pci-bridge right away.

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inxi -F
System:    Host: mx1 Kernel: 4.2.0-0.bpo.1-amd64 x86_64 (64 bit)
           Desktop: Xfce 4.12.2 Distro: MX-15_x64 Fusion 24 December 2015
Machine:   System: Dell product: Latitude D630

If I recall correctly broadcom-sta-dkms (which installs the wl driver) isn't installed by default in AntiX-15, it is installed in MX-15.

conn.sk · posted: 2016-01-11 18:28

Thanks. I will post the details this evening.

dolphin_oracle · posted: 2016-01-11 18:38

kmathern wrote: edit:
I think maybe the"lspci -vnn -d 14e4:" in lines 121 & 127 of the BroadcomStartup script should be changed to this"lspci -vnn -d 14e4:4320"
and in lines 136 & 142 they should be changed to"lspci -vnn -d 14e4:4324"

that will isolate the search in the output do those particular parts, so that's a good change. Once conn.sk posts output we can check the grep code.

Shay · posted: 2016-01-11 19:53

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 lspci -vnn -d 14e4:
0c:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4321 802.11a/b/g/n [14e4:4328] (rev 03)
    Subsystem: Dell Wireless 1500 Draft 802.11n WLAN Mini-card [1028:000a]
    Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 17
    Memory at f6cfc000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
    Memory at f0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=1M]
    Capabilities: <access denied>
    Kernel driver in use: b43-pci-bridge

My point about AntiX was it properly identifies the card and installs the right driver is all.

dolphin_oracle · posted: 2016-01-11 20:08

Shay wrote: My point about AntiX was it properly identifies the card and installs the right driver is all.

Shay,

That is a perfectly reasonable assumption.

The long story is that MX contains two different sets of broadcom drivers. wl (a proprietary driver supplied by broadcom through the package broadcom-sta-dkms) works with MORE parts, especially newer parts. The open source set (b43, b44, tg3, etc...) works with many parts, especially older parts, but not as many of the newer parts.

The downside is that the two sets of drivers conflict, so both can't be active at the same time. MX tries to sort this out with a preemptive script that tries to determine which driver to use and then blacklist the conflicting one. This is done by pid numbers. Its a neat idea, but its also the first time we've tried it and there are apparently some issues to work out. We only had a limited set of broadcom parts to test with.

To my knowledge, the parts that you and conn.sk are the first to encounter issues, although for different reasons. Your part is actually listed as supported by wl (and only partially by b43), but your ethernet is apparently using tg3, which also conflicts with wl. In your case, I would blacklist wl and unblacklist ALL of the open source drivers (or just uninstall broadcom-sta-dkms in an installed or live w/persistence session).

The reason that antiX works OOTB for your part is that the conflicting wl driver isn't present, so no conflicts. The open source drivers do not conflict with one another.

In conn.sk's case, it looks like the detection algorithm failed, hence our desire for his device output.

***edit*** I might be wrong about tg3 conflicting with wl. Full disclosure.

Shay · posted: 2016-01-11 21:25

Thank you! That is a right nice explanation and I appreciate it.

In your case, I would blacklist wl and unblacklist ALL of the open source drivers (or just uninstall broadcom-sta-dkms in an installed or live w/persistence session).

Those routes will be explored. Thanks !!

conn.sk · posted: 2016-01-11 23:29

$ lspci -vnn -d 14e4:
02:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4401 100Base-T [14e4:4401] (rev 01)
Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:8127]
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 32, IRQ 11
Memory at faffe000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable)
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: b44

02:03.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4306 802.11b/g Wireless LAN Controller [14e4:4320] (rev 03)
Subsystem: Dell Wireless 1350 WLAN Mini-PCI Card [1028:0003]
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 32, IRQ 7
Memory at faff6000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable)
Kernel driver in use: b43-pci-bridge

Shay · posted: 2016-01-12 00:13

In your case, I would blacklist wl and unblacklist ALL of the open source drivers (or just uninstall broadcom-sta-dkms in an installed or live w/persistence session).

Blacklisted wl b32 was installed. on reboot b43 disappeared and"uninstall broadcom-sta-dkms'" left me with wl and tg3 which was a NON-working situation.
Just a update .

dolphin_oracle · posted: 2016-01-12 00:39

Shay wrote:
In your case, I would blacklist wl and unblacklist ALL of the open source drivers (or just uninstall broadcom-sta-dkms in an installed or live w/persistence session).
Blacklisted wl b32 was installed. on reboot b43 disappeared and"uninstall broadcom-sta-dkms'" left me with wl and tg3 which was a NON-working situation.
Just a update .

I don't understand how with persistence your changes are not preserved. the blacklistings should survive a reboot.

after removing broadcom-sta-dkms

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apt-get remove broadcom-sta-dkms

and rebooting, the wl driver shouldn't even be available.