MEPIS Community Forum

For the record (now that three competing proposals are in this thread), I believe the following information is correct and useful:
1) the the Linux Wireless page says that for a device such as this, the b43 kernel module is the first choice, followed by the module wl, and then ndiswrapper if nothing else works.
2)"The Broadcom wireless chip needs proprietary software (called "firmware") that runs on the wireless chip itself to work properly. This firmware is copyrighted by Broadcom and must be extracted from Broadcom's proprietary drivers. To get such firmware on your system, you must download the driver from a legal distribution point, extract it, and install it." Using the b43 module in MEPIS, we use the package firmware-b43-installer.
3) Finally, Broadcom often does not like competing drivers, so I recommend following one solution rather than a shotgun approach. If you are going to do ndiswrapper (which is not installed by default in M11), then you would want to remove the modules b43 and wl.

Hi everyone,
haven't solved my problems with wireless yet but thinking I should move my quest to another forum - so moving to newbies help I think! [Will call it Broadcom blues]This is supposed to be a testimonal page!!! Haven't been idle though. Checked out the broadcom site. Checked whether 32 or 64 bit system and confirmed 32 bit (means nothing to me, but apparently it's important!) Downloaded instructions & tar for installation. Not sure where or how to start with this file, should I use the network assistant to add the driver to installed drivers? Do I have to unzip it first? and if so how?

Would just like to thank you all again

Lesley

Make a Folder and call it driver. Place the .tar file inside it. With the cursor on the file, right-click and choose 'Extract archive here'. Usually you will have to compile the driver that's enclosed. So take a look at this page in our wiki: http://www.mepis.org/docs/en/index.php?title=Compiling
and ask any questions you need to. Since it's a .tar file it should contain the source code for your driver. Compiling is just 3 or four steps on the Command Line after getting the Preconfiguration step done.
I would suggest that the 'Configure and install dependencies' step be done using Dolphin (File Manager) and KWrite. Both will come up automatically when you click on the Readme or Install file (rather than opening a Konsole/Terminal).

None of the steps in the other thread helped?

lez, might want to check out this thread >http://forum.mepiscommunity.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=32700 and especially read posters final response in post 296669 on the last page. Could possibly work for you. Jerry