Broadcom WiFi - Page 12

Seeker · #**276** March 31st, 2012, 14:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by emc2

Just letting anyone who was discussing bcm4322 support before, I am starting to have more free time now. I'm currently writing another driver, but that shouldn't take too long. I should be able to pick up where I left off.

Don't forget Broadcom BCM4321 too. I'm ready to help testing too.
Actually, I have 1 additional laptop, with Broadcom BCM4313, so I can do tests on it too.

Duh! Buying dell's laptop?
Refuse WiFi card and buy it on your own!

pkubaj · #**277** March 31st, 2012, 16:33

BCM43225 (yes there are two 2's) reporting in. Like others, I can test the driver.

homie · #**278** April 17th, 2012, 14:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by paulfrottawa

Working

Code:

bwi0@pci0:5:2:0:	class=0x028000 card=0x1355103c chip=0x431814e4 rev=0x02 hdr=0x00
    vendor     = 'Broadcom Corporation'
    device     = 'BCM4318 [AirForce One 54g] 802.11g Wireless LAN Controller'
    class      = network

<<<skiped>>>

I have the same NIC in an iBook G4, but CPU architecture is PowerPC and the bwn driver doesn't work for me properly. For example I could connect to my AP (packet loss ~10-40%), ping it, but it was only possible near the AP (less than 3-2 meters). Any thoughts are welcome.

Thanks.

ForTozs · #**279** June 22nd, 2012, 05:01

I would gladly test on a BCM4312 (low power) Dell Mini. bwn is close on this one, but I still am having problems.

kr651129 · #**280** June 23rd, 2012, 06:14

I'd like to help test also but I think that Broadcom is just so bad that it shouldn't be supported or "supported" at all. The only reason I'm for the support of Broadcom drivers is because they are in a lot of Dell machines. I don't really know much about Broadcom in machines other than Dell.

andersbo87 · #**281** June 25th, 2012, 14:16

Most newer Macs (at least MacBook Pros) from (at least) 2009 and newer also use Broadcom. The one I've got, a 2011 17-inch model, uses Broadcom for both wired and wireless Internet. The wired Broadcom driver (bge(4)) works fine in FreeBSD 9.0, however wireless does not work (I haven't tried it with NDIS yet).

UglyJoe · #**282** August 21st, 2012, 18:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by emc2

Just letting anyone who was discussing bcm4322 support before, I am starting to have more free time now. I'm currently writing another driver, but that shouldn't take too long. I should be able to pick up where I left off.

Any update on progress on this driver?

KNOStic · #**283** August 22nd, 2012, 08:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by UglyJoe

Any update on progress on this driver?

So far, no. I'm hoping to be available to work with EMC in about 2-3 weeks perhaps. The problem with these cards is that they're all based on Broadcom's wl5 code, and neither bwi nor bwn modules will work with the "newer" Broadcom cards. In fact, on 64 bit versions, bwn, if it detects the cards at all will panic hard. I had to remove several PCI ID's from the /usr/src/sys/dev/siba/siba_bwn.c code (and reported it numerous times) since bwn doesn't work with them anyway after failing to attach and then spitting the bit in the kernel, going four paws to the moon. Jeung walked away from bwn over a year ago now.

I've tried all sorts of tricks myself with NDIS, and although the cards get detected and attached and even have their firmware uploaded through NDIS, they come up brain dead on channel 1, won't scan and when you go through the step of # /etc/rc.d/netif restart after manually trying to wake them up, kernel panic. Now I know Richardpl has submitted new code to try to fix that, but not one line of it has made it into the kernel yet, not even the latest build of 10 current. For MY purposes, NDIS is hopelessly broken and is absolutely useless with Broadcom PCI-E stuff. I won't even get into how bad it gets if the card has bluetooth as well.

So ... Since we last visited this topic, the kernel folks have finally gotten some work in on 802.11n support, so there's some hope that wasn't there before. bwi and bwn clearly ain't gonna cut it since the cards in question here are all bcmwl5-based and there IS a Linux driver and library released by Broadcom which of course doesn't help us here in beastie-land.

I propose however that the only real way to go after this would be to take the code that Broadcom released for Linux and attempt to port the code to BSD. Either that, or snatch some Broadcom wiglets and hold them for ransom until they provide US a port.

EMC ... what should we do? Be happy to do what I can once I've moved into my new location after the end of this month ... but like it or not, BSD *MUST* support Broadcom, we have no choice. Every POS computer made lately has that stuff in them, and Apple has abandoned their users who bought in with Tiger, Leopard and now Snow Leopard. EVERY Apple user I talk to WANTS BSD on there. But they have Broadcom out the wazoo. It *must* get done, one way or another. We really have no choice anymore.

I wrote Windows drivers for years, I've cobbled BSD drivers here and there. I'm really not quite up to speed for something of this complexity, but I can certainly help if I can get a few other hands with a little more experience with the 802.11 stuff. Any takers?

---

Finally for Dutch: I understand that this should go out on the "list" but I don't want to step on what's going on there until there's actually some degree of plan. I see they're insanely busy schmoozing ath into working and so far, all we have here is a dollar and a dream. Thus, for the moment, I think this is a smarter place to build an army and at least indicate to the rest of the community how important dealing with Broadcom's mess truly is. Hope you'll forgive me.

Seeker · #**284** August 22nd, 2012, 10:37

I think, that first step should be talking to Broadcom, to support FreeBSD and build native driver, as they did for Linux.
If "diplomacy" fails ..., we might get a little harsher with them.

kpa · #**285** August 22nd, 2012, 10:45

I don't think there's much you can do unless Broadcom sees some value (cash cash cash) in supporting FreeBSD. It doesn't help that FreeBSD has reputation of being a server OS and you don't see those wireless network adapters in servers that often.

Seeker · #**286** August 22nd, 2012, 13:18

Reputation is ... false!
FreeBSD is what you make it to.
Desktop, laptop, server, embedded ...
If Nvidia has been made into seeing FreeBSD "the right way", than Broadcom could too.
Nvidia is also a bigger company, so ..., has anyone started chatter with Broadcom?

emc2 · #**287** August 23rd, 2012, 13:37

I definitely have an interest in improving the hardware support on Apple platforms. As for time well... I've been supposedly working on EFI support under GSoC, except I'm backlogged there too, due to job searching/interviewing, and now I have to move and start a new job.

I have plans on reverse-engineering the closed source linux driver, which I think I've discussed here before. In essence, there is an object file they distribute, which gets compiled against an open source linux kernel interface. From the look of things, the object file is OS-independent. If that's the case, it should be possible to build a replacement for the linux interface.

I had plans to make some tools to try and decompile the object file. The process goes something like this: disassemble, reconstruct CFGs, run structural analysis to get back the control flow structures[0], try and figure out local variables from registers/stack slots, try and infer types using info from the headers. All but the last two steps can be fully automated. The last two may need help from a human somewhere along the way. I'm pretty confident that this could recover most if not all of the closed-source object file in this case. In the more general case, these tools could be a very useful for future efforts.

[0]: See "Advanced Compiler Design and Implementation"

Seeker · #**288** August 23rd, 2012, 15:28

Post this on hackers@freebsd.org

Quote:

In essence, there is an object file they distribute, which gets compiled against an open source linux kernel interface. From the look of things, the object file is OS-independent. If that's the case, it should be possible to build a replacement for the linux interface.

I had plans to make some tools to try and decompile the object file. The process goes something like this: disassemble, reconstruct CFGs, run structural analysis to get back the control flow structures[0], try and figure out local variables from registers/stack slots, try and infer types using info from the headers. All but the last two steps can be fully automated. The last two may need help from a human somewhere along the way. I'm pretty confident that this could recover most if not all of the closed-source object file in this case. In the more general case, these tools could be a very useful for future efforts.

[0]: See "Advanced Compiler Design and Implementation"

You'll get directly in touch with devs ...

Hint: Fact that this is about driver, is very little relevant, but reverse-engineering bin code.
Best help and assistance, you'll get there.

yo9fah · #**289** November 1st, 2012, 22:17

How can I solve this problem, I cannot connecting to my wireless card http://i.imgur.com/NKxaX.png

Not connecting. I get an error:

Quote:

bwn0: RX decryption attempted (old 0 keyidx 0x1) bwn0: need multicast update callback

I tried with bwi driver but not working.

# pciconf -lvbc

Code:

siba_bwn0@pci0:4:0:0:	class=0x028000 card=0xe003105b chip=0x431514e4 rev=0x01 hdr=0x00
    vendor     = 'Broadcom Corporation'
    device     = 'BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY'
    class      = network
    bar   [10] = type Memory, range 64, base 0xf8000000, size 16384, enabled
    cap 01[40] = powerspec 3  supports D0 D1 D2 D3  current D0
    cap 09[58] = vendor (length 120)
    cap 05[e8] = MSI supports 1 message, 64 bit enabled with 1 message
    cap 10[d0] = PCI-Express 1 endpoint max data 128(128) link x1(x1)
ecap 0001[100] = AER 1 0 fatal 1 non-fatal 4 corrected
ecap 0002[13c] = VC 1 max VC0
ecap 0003[160] = Serial 1 4c473affff9a001f
ecap 0004[16c] = unknown 1

# kldstat

Code:

Id Refs Address            Size     Name
 1   39 0xffffffff80200000 1323288  kernel
 2    2 0xffffffff81524000 484c0    linux.ko
 3    1 0xffffffff8156d000 415d8    if_bwn.ko
 4    2 0xffffffff815af000 cc18     siba_bwn.ko
 5    1 0xffffffff815bc000 29e0     coretemp.ko
 6    1 0xffffffff815bf000 6668     sem.ko
 7    1 0xffffffff815c6000 6600     cuse4bsd.ko
 8    1 0xffffffff815cd000 de08     tmpfs.ko
 9    1 0xffffffff815db000 2d358    bwn_v4_lp_ucode.ko
10    1 0xffffffff81812000 3dfc     linprocfs.ko
11    1 0xffffffff81816000 15c2     fdescfs.ko
12    1 0xffffffff81818000 a96b     fuse.ko
13    1 0xffffffff81823000 8267     i915.ko
14    1 0xffffffff8182c000 13815    drm.ko

# netstat -r

Code:

Routing tables

Internet:
Destination        Gateway            Flags    Refs      Use  Netif Expire
default            192.168.1.1        UGS         0      392   bge0
localhost          link#12            UH          0        6    lo0
192.168.1.0        link#13            U           0        0  wlan0
192.168.1.100      link#4             UHS         0        0    lo0
192.168.1.102      link#13            UHS         0        0    lo0

Internet6:
Destination        Gateway            Flags      Netif Expire
::                 localhost          UGRS        lo0
localhost          link#12            UH          lo0
::ffff:0.0.0.0     localhost          UGRS        lo0
fe80::             localhost          UGRS        lo0
fe80::%bge0        link#4             U          bge0
fe80::21d:72ff:fe3 link#4             UHS         lo0
fe80::%lo0         link#12            U           lo0
fe80::1%lo0        link#12            UHS         lo0
ff01::%bge0        fe80::21d:72ff:fe3 U          bge0
ff01::%lo0         localhost          U           lo0
ff02::             localhost          UGRS        lo0
ff02::%bge0        fe80::21d:72ff:fe3 U          bge0
ff02::%lo0         localhost          U           lo0

# ifconfig

Code:

bge0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
	options=c019b<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,VLAN_MTU,VLAN_HWTAGGING,VLAN_HWCSUM,TSO4,VLAN_HWTSO,LINKSTATE>
	ether 00:1d:72:32:45:5d
	inet6 fe80::21d:72ff:fe32:455d%bge0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x4 
	inet 192.168.1.100 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.1.255
	nd6 options=23<PERFORMNUD,ACCEPT_RTADV,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
	media: Ethernet autoselect (100baseTX <full-duplex>)
	status: active
bwn0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 2290
	ether 00:1f:3a:9a:4c:47
	nd6 options=29<PERFORMNUD,IFDISABLED,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
	media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet autoselect mode 11g
	status: associated
fwe0: flags=8802<BROADCAST,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
	options=8<VLAN_MTU>
	ether 02:1d:72:32:45:5d
	nd6 options=29<PERFORMNUD,IFDISABLED,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
	ch 1 dma -1
fwip0: flags=8802<BROADCAST,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
	lladdr 0.1d.72.ff.ff.32.45.5d.a.2.ff.fe.0.0.0.0
	nd6 options=29<PERFORMNUD,IFDISABLED,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
lo0: flags=8049<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 16384
	options=600003<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,RXCSUM_IPV6,TXCSUM_IPV6>
	inet6 ::1 prefixlen 128 
	inet6 fe80::1%lo0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0xc 
	inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 0xff000000 
	nd6 options=21<PERFORMNUD,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
wlan0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
	ether 00:1f:3a:9a:4c:47
	inet 192.168.1.102 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.1.255
	nd6 options=29<PERFORMNUD,IFDISABLED,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
	media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet OFDM/36Mbps mode 11g
	status: associated
	ssid YO9FAH channel 6 (2437 MHz 11g) bssid 00:22:6b:e9:5e:7a
	country US authmode WPA2/802.11i privacy ON deftxkey UNDEF
	AES-CCM 2:128-bit txpower 30 bmiss 7 scanvalid 450 bgscan
	bgscanintvl 300 bgscanidle 250 roam:rssi 7 roam:rate 5 protmode CTS
	wme roaming MANUAL

# ifconfig wlan0 list scan sta

Code:

SSID/MESH ID    BSSID              CHAN RATE   S:N     INT CAPS
union           00:e0:61:28:41:97    1   54M -138:-95  100 EP   WPS
D.O.D           34:08:04:08:3c:14    1   54M -133:-95  100 EPS  WPS HTCAP WME
YO9FAH          00:22:6b:e9:5e:7a    6   54M -115:-95  100 EP   RSN WME
TRENDnet        00:14:d1:34:6b:8e    6   54M -137:-95  100 EPS 
Nutunet         28:10:7b:62:fc:28    6   54M -122:-95  100 EP   HTCAP WPA RSN WME WPS
cla@alex        f4:ec:38:cb:53:42    4   54M -124:-95  100 EPS  RSN WPA WME HTCAP ATH WPS
ifconfig: sta: bad value

loader.conf

Code:

linux_load="YES"
coretemp_load="YES"
sem_load="YES"
cuse4bsd_load="YES"
tmpfs_load="YES"
linux_v4l2wrapper_load="YES"
pwc_load="YES"
# Enable the graphical boot-loader
autoboot_delay="01"
if_bwn_load="YES"
bwn_v4_lp_ucode_load="YES"
hw.bwn.usedma=0

rc.conf

Code:

background_dhclient="YES"
hostname="fbsd"
keymap="us.iso.kbd"
ifconfig_bge0="DHCP"
ifconfig_bge0_ipv6="inet6 accept_rtadv"
sshd_enable="YES"
moused_enable="NO"
ntpd_enable="YES"
ntpd_sync_on_start="YES"
powerd_enable="YES"
# Set dumpdev to "AUTO" to enable crash dumps, "NO" to disable
dumpdev="NO"
hald_enable="YES"
dbus_enable="YES"
slim_enable="YES"
fusefs_enable="YES"
linux_enable="YES"
smartd_enable="YES"
devfs_system_ruleset="devfsrules_common"
# Clean out temporary files
clear_tmp_enable="YES"
clean_tmp_X="YES"
webcamd_enable="YES"
wlans_bwn0="wlan0"
ifconfig_wlan0="WPA SYNCDHCP"

And my dmesg: http://pastebin.com/RmN7W7ew

yo9fah · #**290** November 5th, 2012, 12:16

LE: Oh God !!! I do not believe it !!! I work my wireless network card !!! Are now connected to my wireless card BCM4312 but works with "Project Devil"!

dclegg · #**291** November 6th, 2012, 18:52

Hi, I also have a Dell Latitude E5500 with BCM4322 wireless.
I'm very new to FreeBSD but excited to try to switch from Linux. I understand the broadcom support is in progress and wanted to volunteer testing andy developments. This is my first post here so please forgive my ignorance. Let me know if there's anything else I can supply.

Bwi driver doesn't appear to do much, will load with kldload or in loader.conf but doesn't show any result in pciconf. Bwn driver makes kernel panic when put in loader.conf, similar to previous notes about this. When loaded with kldload it works. shows in kldstat and dmesg is as follows

Code:

siba_bwn0: <Unknown> mem 0xf69fc000-0xf69fffff irq 17 at device 0.0 on pci12
siba_bwn0: warn: multiple PCI(E) cores
siba_bwn0: unsupported coreid (USB 2.0 Device)
siba_bwn0: unsupported coreid (unknown)
siba_bwn0: unsupported coreid (Internal Memory)
siba_bwn0: unknown chipid 0x4322 for PLL & PMU init
bwn0 on siba_bwn0
bwn0: unsupported PHY type (4)
device_attach: bwn0 attach returned 6

# pciconf -lv:

Code:

siba_bwn0@pci0:12:0:0:  class=0x028000 card=0x000d1028 chip=0x432b14e4 rev=0x01 hdr=0x00
    vendor     = 'Broadcom Corporation'
    device     = 'BCM4322 802.11a/b/g/n Wireless LAN Controller'
    class      = network

# kldstat:

Code:

Id Refs Address            Size     Name
 1   14 0xffffffff80200000 11cd9b0  kernel
 3    1 0xffffffff81612000 8341     i915.ko
 4    1 0xffffffff8161b000 139a7    drm.ko
 9    1 0xffffffff8162f000 29889    if_bwn.ko
10    1 0xffffffff81659000 61e4     siba_bwn.ko

l2f · #**292** November 15th, 2012, 03:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by paradox

Code:

wpa_supplicant_enable="YES"
wlans_ndis0="wlan0"
ifconfig_wlan0="WPA DHCP"

should be enough

remove another unused line

I remove the first line:

Code:

 wpa_supplicant_enable="YES"

and added

Code:

wpa_supplicant_flags="-Dndis"

in my /etc/rc.conf

I have a compaq mini 110c 1100ca running:

Code:

FreeBSD MiniBeastie.maison.org 8.3-RELEASE-p4 FreeBSD 8.3-RELEASE-p4 #0: Tue Oct 30 15:25:20 EDT 2012     root@MiniBeastie.maison.org:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC_P4  i386

Thanks so much for the info

Regards,

l2f

**adrian@** · #**293** December 9th, 2012, 21:58

.. then please join the FreeBSD wireless list (freebsd-wireless@freebsd.org) and don't be afraid to ask questions.

I'm not really allowed to work on it (as I'm employed by Qualcomm Atheros), so I stick to net80211 and atheros wireless driver support.

I and the other developers would love to see some traction made on updated broadcom support. Yes, this does likely mean porting the brcm80211 driver from Linux and all the relevant SIBA bus glue over. Yes, Broadcom _had_ (or have, internally?) a multi-platform driver which would likely work on FreeBSD with little changes. But what they push into Linux has been "linux-ified" and we'd likely have to undo all of that nonsense in order to get it working on FreeBSD.

It's a catch-22 situation. If there's no-one using Broadcom on FreeBSD, no-one's going to ask, and thus Broadcom won't take it seriously, so they won't help, so there isn't any support on FreeBSD, hence no-one uses it, etc. If you want to see that cycle broken then we the community need to do the "linux thing" - stand up and take charge of it ourselves.

The same goes for Marvell (mostly for their embedded wifi on various ARM *plug devices.) They do have a BSD wireless driver for their chipsets. They just don't open source it to FreeBSD any longer.

G_Nerc · #**294** December 10th, 2012, 04:03

adrian@, good day! As developer of wireless - subsystem, can you talk is anybody working in broadcom usb wireless on FreeBSD? For example for Netgear WNA-3100
Broadcom is widely used chipset and support in FreeBSD will be necessary

MasterOne · #**295** December 22nd, 2012, 21:23

Damned, completely overlooked the Broadcom problem!

I just checked, the Acer Aspire One 753 netbook I am trying to run FreeBSD 9.1-RELEASE amd64 on, has a BCM43225 wireless chipset, so I guess this is a dead end then?

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