BCM43XX Wireless drivers

[Glen Barber]

On Tue, Dec 16, 2008 at 12:49 PM, Alexey Ivanov <need4spam at bk.ru> wrote:
> In my notebook i have
>
> ndis0 at pci0:48:0:0:   class=0x028000 card=0x1371103c chip=0x431214e4 rev=0x02 hdr=0x00
>    vendor     = 'Broadcom Corporation'
>    device     = 'BCM4310 broadcom wireless 1490 (dell)'
>    class      = network
>    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
>    cap 10[d0] = PCI-Express 1 endpoint
>
> and as i know it's currently not supported by FreeBSD.
> I've downloaded http://paradox.lissyara.su/bwi.01.tar.bz2 (it's sources from some p4 branch that is actually dragonflybsd bwi driver port) but still no luck, cause all modern broadcom cards need v4 firmware.
> I also extracted/built v4_150 broadcom firmware (http://opticomspb.ru/~savetherbtz/freebsd/bwi/bwifw_v4_150.tar.bz2) and found site with it's cpecs http://bcm-v4.sipsolutions.net/ on which Linux driver is based
>
> But with my knowledge of C i can't write driver =(
> FreeBSD forums thread here http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=170
>
> Is there any work going that way? Or Broadcom Wi-fi will always be unsupported on FreBSD.


Until broadcom releases the specs on their hardware, NDIS is our only
solution. I used the .INF and .SYS files from my WinXP driver disk for
my Dell laptop (Inspiron b120) and ndisgen.

Besides no LED light when the card is active, it works (but is a pain
sometimes).  Also, it supports WPA/WEP.  My suggestion is a USB
adapter (preferably Atheros).

Regards.

-- 
Glen Barber


"If you have any trouble sounding condescending, find a Unix user to
show you how it's done."
 --Scott Adams