Compaq Presario V6107AU running Fedora 7 with a Broadcom wireless chipset. Kernel: 2.6.22.7-85.fc7 x86_64 /var/log/messages shows this: Sep 23 19:31:34 c211-30-78-254 firmware_helper[4763]: Loading of /lib/firmware/bcm43xx_microcode5.fw for b43 driver failed: No such file or directory Sep 23 19:31:35 c211-30-78-254 kernel: b43-phy0 ERROR: Microcode "bcm43xx_microcode5.fw" not available or load failed. Sep 23 19:31:35 c211-30-78-254 kernel: b43-phy0 ERROR: You must go to http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/b43#devicefirmware and download the correct firmware (version 4) Sep 23 19:31:37 c211-30-78-254 NetworkManager: <WARN> nm_device_802_11_wireless_scan(): could not trigger wireless scan on device eth1: Network is down Sep 23 19:33:37 c211-30-78-254 kernel: b43-phy0 ERROR: Microcode "bcm43xx_microcode5.fw" not available or load failed. Sep 23 19:33:37 c211-30-78-254 kernel: b43-phy0 ERROR: You must go to http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/b43#devicefirmware and download the correct firmware (version 4) So it loaded the b43 driver and was looking for /lib/firmware/bcm43xx_microcode5.fw It tells me to get the firmware from http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/b43#devicefirmware ... which then says to download http://downloads.openwrt.org/sources/broadcom-wl-4.80.53.0.tar.bz2 ... which when extracted has a wl_apsta.o ... which when extracted with b43-fwcutter ( as per instructions in the link above ) does NOT produce a file called /lib/firmware/bcm43xx_microcode5.fw, as shown below: # b43-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware/ broadcom-wl-4.80.53.0/kmod/wl_apsta.o This file is recognised as: filename : wl_apsta.o version : 351.126 MD5 : 9207bc565c2fc9fa1591f6c7911d3fc0 Extracting b43/ucode4.fw Extracting b43/ucode5.fw Extracting b43/ucode11.fw Extracting b43/ucode13.fw Extracting b43/pcm4.fw Extracting b43/pcm5.fw Extracting b43/b0g0initvals4.fw Extracting b43/b0g0bsinitvals4.fw Extracting b43/a0g0initvals4.fw Extracting b43/a0g0bsinitvals4.fw Extracting b43/b0g0initvals5.fw Extracting b43/b0g0bsinitvals5.fw Extracting b43/a0g0initvals5.fw Extracting b43/a0g1initvals5.fw Extracting b43/a0g0bsinitvals5.fw Extracting b43/a0g1bsinitvals5.fw Extracting b43/lp0initvals13.fw Extracting b43/lp0bsinitvals13.fw Extracting b43/b0g0initvals13.fw Extracting b43/b0g0bsinitvals13.fw Extracting b43/a0g1initvals13.fw Extracting b43/a0g1bsinitvals13.fw So I am confused about the instructions from the website. Instead, I downloaded the XP drivers from Compaq / HP and extracted the firmware files instead using bcm43xx-fwcutter ( instead of b43-fwcutter ) .... which produced the file that the b43 driver was looking for ( /lib/firmware/bcm43xx_microcode5.fw ) and other firmware files. So why was the b43 driver looking for a firmware file that cannot be produced by b43-fwcutter ( but produced by bcm43xx-fwcutter ) ? Does this mean I am using a v3 firmware ? ... but I though b43 driver is only for v4 firmware ? So I am confused as per above... John
