# Belkin Wireless G (USB) and Broadcom bcmwl5_sys



## quakerdoomer (Feb 26, 2010)

Regarding Belking *WIRELESS* G (USB) and Broadcom bcmwl5_sys

Does FreeBSD 8.0 support Belkin Wireless G (USB Wireless Card) ? (with or without ndis)

I have an onboard Broadcom Wireless Card in my Dell Laptop.
Using ndis I've managed to get bcmwl5_sys.ko loaded.
The Fn+Wireless Key doesn't switch on the Wireless Card LED (hence the card)
(In fact Fn+Many_Other_Combinations don't work, but thats a different issue altogether)


ifconfig shows the mac address of the wireless card properly. Is there a way I can enable this card ?

Also will FreeBSD 8.0 support Belkin Wireless G (USB card) ?


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## lme@ (Feb 26, 2010)

Yesterday the bwn driver was committed to FreeBSD-Current. It sould work with your card

  - Broadcom BCM4306 802.11b/g Wireless
  - Broadcom BCM4318 802.11b/g Wireless


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## richardpl (Feb 26, 2010)

lme@ said:
			
		

> Yesterday the bwn driver was committed to FreeBSD-Current. It sould work with your card
> 
> - Broadcom BCM4306 802.11b/g Wireless
> - Broadcom BCM4318 802.11b/g Wireless



bwn(4) supports pci/cardbus only.


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## richardpl (Feb 26, 2010)

quakerdoomer said:
			
		

> Regarding Belking *WIRELESS* G (USB) and Broadcom bcmwl5_sys
> 
> Does FreeBSD 8.0 support Belkin Wireless G (USB Wireless Card) ? (with or without ndis)
> 
> ...



Does `# ifconfig wlan0 up` helps?

Does disabling halting USB device on attach helps:
`# sysctl hw.ndisusb.halt=0`
Reattach after this command.


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## quakerdoomer (Feb 27, 2010)

I have an internal Broadcom chipset Wireless card which doesn't work / glow up the WiFi display LED.
I haven't bought the Belkin Wireless G (USB Adapter) yet.


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## quakerdoomer (Feb 27, 2010)

lme@ : Can you provide a http URL for "FreeBSD-9.0-CURRENT-201002-i386-memstick.img" with date > 17 FEB2010


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## richardpl (Feb 28, 2010)

Look in pciconf(8) output is your card really supported by bwn(4)


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## blstuart (Mar 1, 2010)

quakerdoomer said:
			
		

> I have an internal Broadcom chipset Wireless card which doesn't work / glow up the WiFi display LED.
> I haven't bought the Belkin Wireless G (USB Adapter) yet.



The absence of the WiFi LED may not mean anything.  I've got an HP laptop with a broadcom 4321 (or maybe 4322) PCIe card and use it with the NDIS driver.  The LED does not follow the condition of the card at all.  Indeed I don't seem to have any way of controlling whether the card is on from FreeBSD.  I suspect all of that is done through ACPI, and I haven't yet explored that dark magic.  There are, however, a few chickens I have to sacrifice to even get the NDIS driver to work.  First, I have to make sure the card is powered up.  It seems to remember the power state from the last time I shut down Windows, so if I suspect it's off, I'll boot Windows, turn it on and then reboot.  Second, I can't get a good scan for APs until I set the chanlist and the autmode.  The driver doesn't pay any attention to which channels are in the list, but if I don't set it, I can't scan.  Likewise, I shouldn't need to set the authmode until I try to associate, but if I don't, I can't scan.  So in the hotel I'm in the last few nights, my sequence is:


```
kldload bcmwl5_sys
ifconfig wlan0 create wlandev ndis0
ifconfig wlan0 up
ifconfig wlan0 chanlist 11 authmode open
ifconfig wlan0 scan
ifconfig wlan0 ssid foo
dhclient wlan0
```

Finally, he doesn't seem to want to automatically scan on his own, so a list scan won't give my anything until I've first done a scan.

Hope this helps.


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## quakerdoomer (Mar 2, 2010)

blstuart : I checked your reply at https://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?p=52335

I was unaware that one needs to create wlan0 after getting ndis0.
This is the final flow which I followed and now I can use WPA on BCM
NOTE that The LED is still switched off and I don't think so it was switched when last used with XP(alternate OS).


```
ifconfig
cd /root
kldload ./bcmwl5_sys.ko 
ifconfig wlan0 create wlandev ndis0
ifconfig wlan0 up                   
ifconfig                            
ifconfig wlan0 up
ifconfig wlan0 chanlist 11 authmode open
ifconfig wlan0 scan
ifconfig wlan0 chanlist 1 authmode open
ifconfig wlan0 scan
ifconfig wlan0 chanlist 2 authmode open
ifconfig wlan0 scan
pciconf -lvcb
kldstat
ifconfig nds0 scan
ifconfig wlan0 chanlist 11 authmode open
ifconfig ndis0 chanlist 11 authmode open
ifconfig wlan0 chanlist 11 authmode open
ifconfig wlan0 scan
# wireshark
dmesg | grep pci
dmesg | grep pci5                                                                               
ifconfig

# EDIT wpa_supplicant.conf FILE 
# vi /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
# network={
# ssid="########SOMESSID########"
# psk="####your_wpa_key####"
# }



wpa_supplicant -D ndis -i wlan0 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf

dhclient wlan0
```

Though bcm over ndis is a little buggy but its usable.
Thanks blstuart and everyone involved in this thread and other related ones for the inputs.


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## blstuart (Mar 2, 2010)

quakerdoomer said:
			
		

> I was unaware that one needs to create wlan0 after getting ndis0.



Yeah, that's something that's new in 8.  It took me a little while to get used to it.



> NOTE that The LED is still switched off and I don't think so it was switched when last used with XP(alternate OS).



I suspect that the LED and power behaviors are going to be pretty much a function of which machine it is.  One of the things on my to-do list is to spend some quality time with ACPI and see if I can sort out how to make that work, at least on my machine.  So if you hear of me going completely bonkers off in a corner muttering, you'll know ACPI was the culprit.



> Though bcm over ndis is a little buggy but its usable.
> Thanks blstuart and everyone involved in this thread and other related ones for the inputs.



It's definitely a bit finicky.  Still, it's pretty impressive that a whole family of binary blobs can be tamed as much as they are.  And you're welcome.  I'm glad to be able to pass on the kind of help I got when I was sorting it all out.


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## fabiokaminski (Jul 17, 2010)

*usb bcm4312 usb *

trying to get my former laptop alive with freebsd .. this bcm43 usb are helpless

... using 64 bit version of ndis driver, when module is loaded, kernel just freezes badly!

anyone succeded with 64 bit version of this driver?


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## richardpl (Jul 17, 2010)

On amd64 ndis is broken (at least with broadcom) - do not use it.
On i386 loading 64-bit drivers will panic system(it should not, but obviously 64bit drivers can not work on 32bit system) - I fixed this in my git but lost motivation to merge it with CURRENT.

Here is some development on NDISulator:
http://gitorious.org/ndisulator

I made some improvements regarding amd64 support - it no longer crash on driver load but it crash on fpudna(I think) - this one can be fixed in CURRENT - but I lost motivation.

Bad news: with some of my changes, USB support got broken to point it is of no use any more, I have no idea where is problem.
CURRENT have some timeouts with NDISulator and USB devices - I contacted main usb developer at freebsd without result.


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