[gentoo-user] broadcom-sta and the 3.6.x kernel

[gentoo-user] broadcom-sta and the 3.6.x kernel

[Allan Gottlieb]

The broadcom-sta package works fine for me with several kernels up to
3.5.x.  But with 3.6.x it fails.  This seems to be a known problem, gentoo
bug https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=437898

437898 contains some patches and various comments, but I am surprised
that the current ebuild does not work with the current kernel since at
least 10 october.

I believe several on this list use -sta and know many are running 3.6.x.
What do you do?  I should add that at present running 3.5.x is not a
hardship for me.

thanks,
allan

Re: [gentoo-user] broadcom-sta and the 3.6.x kernel

[Dustin C. Hatch]

On 12/3/2012 19:22, Allan Gottlieb wrote:
> I believe several on this list use -sta and know many are running 3.6.x.
> What do you do?  I should add that at present running 3.5.x is not a
> hardship for me.
>
I have broadcom-sta working on my notebook with kernel-3.6, using the 
patches in #437898. For convenience, you can find them all in my overlay 
(layman -a dustin).

I am actually having better luck with kernel-3.6 than I did with 3.5 
because of several problems in the wl driver with regard to cfg80211. 
Notably, in 3.5 with cfg80211, dmesg was filled with "cannot get rssi" 
messages, several per minute. That's gone now and wpa_supplicant 
correctly reports receive signal strength.

-- 
♫Dustin

Re: [gentoo-user] broadcom-sta and the 3.6.x kernel

[Florian Philipp]

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Am 04.12.2012 09:13, schrieb Dustin C. Hatch:
> On 12/3/2012 19:22, Allan Gottlieb wrote:
>> I believe several on this list use -sta and know many are running 3.6.x.
>> What do you do?  I should add that at present running 3.5.x is not a
>> hardship for me.
>>
> I have broadcom-sta working on my notebook with kernel-3.6, using the
> patches in #437898. For convenience, you can find them all in my overlay
> (layman -a dustin).
> 
> I am actually having better luck with kernel-3.6 than I did with 3.5
> because of several problems in the wl driver with regard to cfg80211.
> Notably, in 3.5 with cfg80211, dmesg was filled with "cannot get rssi"
> messages, several per minute. That's gone now and wpa_supplicant
> correctly reports receive signal strength.
> 

Do you actually need broadcom-sta anymore? With the recent kernel
updates more chips work with the in-kernel driver (brcmsmac). But the
config option is well hidden (you need to enable BCMA to even see it).

Regards,
Florian Philipp


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Re: [gentoo-user] broadcom-sta and the 3.6.x kernel

[Dustin C. Hatch]

On 12/4/2012 06:11, Florian Philipp wrote:
>
> Do you actually need broadcom-sta anymore? With the recent kernel
> updates more chips work with the in-kernel driver (brcmsmac). But the
> config option is well hidden (you need to enable BCMA to even see it).
>
Yes, I initially tried the b43 driver, which worked, but consistently 
dropped about 5-15% of packets, making it mostly unusable. I also tried 
bcrmsmac and bcrmfmac, and neither of them supported my card (432b). 
Unfortunately, I can't get a different card, either, because I my 
notebook has a "whitelist" of supported devices in the BIOS, and it 
won't even boot with a mini-pci-e card installed that isn't in that 
list. Thanks, HP :(

Regards,

-- 
♫Dustin

Re: [gentoo-user] broadcom-sta and the 3.6.x kernel

[2sb7vwu]

> The broadcom-sta package works fine for me with several kernels up to
> 3.5.x.  But with 3.6.x it fails.  This seems to be a known problem, gentoo
> bug https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=437898
> 
> 437898 contains some patches and various comments, but I am surprised
> that the current ebuild does not work with the current kernel since at
> least 10 october.
> 
> I believe several on this list use -sta and know many are running 3.6.x.
> What do you do?  I should add that at present running 3.5.x is not a
> hardship for me.
> thanks,
> allan

Hi!
I'm running 3.5.4 on my netbook. Had that problem after emerging 
networkmanager-0.9.6.4. Downgrading to 0.9.4.0-r6 solved it.

Re: [gentoo-user] broadcom-sta and the 3.6.x kernel

[Mick]

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On Tuesday 04 Dec 2012 15:30:04 Dustin C. Hatch wrote:
> On 12/4/2012 06:11, Florian Philipp wrote:
> > Do you actually need broadcom-sta anymore? With the recent kernel
> > updates more chips work with the in-kernel driver (brcmsmac). But the
> > config option is well hidden (you need to enable BCMA to even see it).
> 
> Yes, I initially tried the b43 driver, which worked, but consistently
> dropped about 5-15% of packets, making it mostly unusable. I also tried
> bcrmsmac and bcrmfmac, and neither of them supported my card (432b).
> Unfortunately, I can't get a different card, either, because I my
> notebook has a "whitelist" of supported devices in the BIOS, and it
> won't even boot with a mini-pci-e card installed that isn't in that
> list. Thanks, HP :(

This sounds scary!!!  Isn't there a way of disabling this feature in the BIOS?  
Have you spoken to the HP police to ask what they can do to allow you to 
manage the machine you bought from them?  O_O  

-- 
Regards,
Mick

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[gentoo-user] Re: broadcom-sta and the 3.6.x kernel

[Nuno J. Silva]

On 2012-12-07, Mick wrote:

> On Tuesday 04 Dec 2012 15:30:04 Dustin C. Hatch wrote:
>> On 12/4/2012 06:11, Florian Philipp wrote:
>> > Do you actually need broadcom-sta anymore? With the recent kernel
>> > updates more chips work with the in-kernel driver (brcmsmac). But the
>> > config option is well hidden (you need to enable BCMA to even see it).
>> 
>> Yes, I initially tried the b43 driver, which worked, but consistently
>> dropped about 5-15% of packets, making it mostly unusable. I also tried
>> bcrmsmac and bcrmfmac, and neither of them supported my card (432b).
>> Unfortunately, I can't get a different card, either, because I my
>> notebook has a "whitelist" of supported devices in the BIOS, and it
>> won't even boot with a mini-pci-e card installed that isn't in that
>> list. Thanks, HP :(
>
> This sounds scary!!!  Isn't there a way of disabling this feature in
> the BIOS?  

With HP, you don't even get a BIOS setup. You get something that tells
you the processor temperature and possibly lets you change the boot
order.

> Have you spoken to the HP police to ask what they can do to allow you to 
> manage the machine you bought from them?  O_O  

I guess I could do that too. I find it a bit annoying that they don't
even offer a BIOS setup and then decide to silently flip some of the
settings with BIOS upgrades (like disabling AMD-V...)


-- 
Nuno Silva (aka njsg)
http://njsg.sdf-eu.org/

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: broadcom-sta and the 3.6.x kernel

[Mick]

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On Tuesday 11 Dec 2012 09:04:59 Nuno J. Silva wrote:
> On 2012-12-07, Mick wrote:
> > On Tuesday 04 Dec 2012 15:30:04 Dustin C. Hatch wrote:
> >> On 12/4/2012 06:11, Florian Philipp wrote:
> >> > Do you actually need broadcom-sta anymore? With the recent kernel
> >> > updates more chips work with the in-kernel driver (brcmsmac). But the
> >> > config option is well hidden (you need to enable BCMA to even see it).
> >> 
> >> Yes, I initially tried the b43 driver, which worked, but consistently
> >> dropped about 5-15% of packets, making it mostly unusable. I also tried
> >> bcrmsmac and bcrmfmac, and neither of them supported my card (432b).
> >> Unfortunately, I can't get a different card, either, because I my
> >> notebook has a "whitelist" of supported devices in the BIOS, and it
> >> won't even boot with a mini-pci-e card installed that isn't in that
> >> list. Thanks, HP :(
> > 
> > This sounds scary!!!  Isn't there a way of disabling this feature in
> > the BIOS?
> 
> With HP, you don't even get a BIOS setup. You get something that tells
> you the processor temperature and possibly lets you change the boot
> order.
> 
> > Have you spoken to the HP police to ask what they can do to allow you to
> > manage the machine you bought from them?  O_O
> 
> I guess I could do that too. I find it a bit annoying that they don't
> even offer a BIOS setup and then decide to silently flip some of the
> settings with BIOS upgrades (like disabling AMD-V...)

Although I used to like Compaq (until they were bought out by HP) what you're 
describing is a place I really don't want to go!  I'd be interested to hear 
what they come back with.  Thanks for sharing.
-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: broadcom-sta and the 3.6.x kernel

[Dustin C. Hatch]

On 12/11/2012 03:04, Nuno J. Silva wrote:
> On 2012-12-07, Mick wrote:
>> This sounds scary!!!  Isn't there a way of disabling this feature in
>> the BIOS?
>
> With HP, you don't even get a BIOS setup. You get something that tells
> you the processor temperature and possibly lets you change the boot
> order.
>
That's exactly the case with this notebook. No settings whatsoever 
beyond date/time and boot order.
>> Have you spoken to the HP police to ask what they can do to allow you to
>> manage the machine you bought from them?  O_O
>
> I guess I could do that too. I find it a bit annoying that they don't
> even offer a BIOS setup and then decide to silently flip some of the
> settings with BIOS upgrades (like disabling AMD-V...)
>
This machine is long since out of warranty; they won't even speak to me 
anymore. I was able to use a hex editor to modify the white list at one 
time, but it didn't matter because the "hardware" radio switch doesn't 
work with different cards, either, leaving the radio in a permanently 
off state.

Someday, I'll get a more professional notebook, but until then, I'm 
stuck with the patched broadcom-sta. It does seem to be working fine for 
now, so I'm not terribly worried. As much as I would prefer to have an 
open source driver, I also need my machine to work.

-- 
♫Dustin