Broadcom BCM4306/BCM2050 drivers for FreeBSD 5.4

[nodicjon]

Hi Guys, I've got Belkin's Wireless PCI 54g Card based on Broadcom's BCM4306/BCM2050 chipset, I want to use it on FreeBSD but cannot find drivers (I'm newbie to FreeBSD). Please give suggestions where to find it and how to install it

[hackajar]

the answer to all your FreeBSD 5.4 questions can be answered here.

Now mind you this is after 2x yaggie shots, 3x yaggie bombs (in addition to) 1 cosmo, 2x Vodka and Cranberry and some New Castle in middle of Las Veags on a Friday night! What the F*ck is wrong with you? Don't even bother with google! If you got FreeBSD then you know to check out the "Hardware Release Notes" on right hand side of F*cking main website http://www.freebsd.org. Common man, I mean, jeeeze WTF!!!!

[pillbox]

NDISulator

Hi Guys, I've got Belkin's Wireless PCI 54g Card based on Broadcom's BCM4306/BCM2050 chipset, I want to use it on FreeBSD but cannot find drivers (I'm newbie to FreeBSD). Please give suggestions where to find it and how to install it

I use a similar miniPCI card in my laptop in my FreeBSD/Windows dualboot. The BCM wifi cards are not supported directly in FreeBSD (if you would like to consider buying a card that is supported, I suggest Atheros, as the company provides the driver directly to FreeBSD for support of their cards, which is rare, only nVidia comes to mind as another company to do the same thing).

However, FreeBSD has an NDIS wrapper that works very well.

Setting up NDIS in FreeBSD is covered in the handbook.

[Sendai]

I have tried the same trying to get a broadcom chipset card working under linux. The broadcom chipset isnt supported by the Linux kernal this is because, the company that makes the chipset will not release the source code for the driver or any details on the chips which other companies do. so hence linux users are not able to use the braodcom chipset. I did have some margenal success using the NDIS wrapper tool but its not good if you want to use Kismet or use it for wardriving because it just wont work properly.

I would suggest buying either a Prism chipset card or atheros are good choices I have a Orinoco Silver and a SMC 2532W cards are they both work perfectly under Knoppix and Auditor.

Hope this helps.

Craig Dunn

[IcEbLAze]

[QUOTE=Sendai]I have tried the same trying to get a broadcom chipset card working under linux. The broadcom chipset isnt supported by the Linux kernal this is because, the company that makes the chipset will not release the source code for the driver or any details on the chips which other companies do. so hence linux users are not able to use the braodcom chipset. I did have some margenal success using the NDIS wrapper tool but its not good if you want to use Kismet or use it for wardriving because it just wont work properly.


This probably wont help much, but if you're interested - theres an online petiton being set up to broadcom for release of their drivers to the linux community. I personally have been waiting for something to come about this for the airport extreme card, but nevertheless:

http://www.petitiononline.com/BCM4301/petition.html

[[Syntax]]

Im not sure what chip is in my laptop, but its a broadcom, and Im running 64bit Fedora and managed to get the XP driver working using ndiswrapper. Even the button on the laptop to enable/disable wireless is functioning.
I'll have to see what version chipset I managed to get working.

[[Syntax]]

Im not sure what chip is in my laptop, but its a broadcom, and Im running 64bit Fedora and managed to get the XP driver working using ndiswrapper. Even the button on the laptop to enable/disable wireless is functioning.
I'll have to see what version chipset I managed to get working.

Update: once again got my broadcom wireless g working, Im using the broadcom drivers from thier website (64 bit & 32bit) available and ndiswrapper on Fedora Core 3 & 4. The model of my internal card is a BCM94306. I did a little searching and see serveral people running these cards under freebsd using ndiswrapper, so it should deffinately be possible.

[Dutch]

Update: once again got my broadcom wireless g working, Im using the broadcom drivers from thier website (64 bit & 32bit) available and ndiswrapper on Fedora Core 3 & 4. The model of my internal card is a BCM94306. I did a little searching and see serveral people running these cards under freebsd using ndiswrapper, so it should deffinately be possible.

Using windowsbased drivers under a *nix system, is just a major kludge IMHO.

The fact remains that Broadcom chipset based Wifi cards sucks almost as much as a 5$ hooker on sunset boulevard, if you want to use it for anything other than general connectivity.

I donated my Broadcom based Belkin F5D7010 card as a prize to a competition on the NS forums, just to get rid of it.

Dutch

[pillbox]

Using windowsbased drivers under a *nix system, is just a major kludge IMHO.

The fact remains that Broadcom chipset based Wifi cards sucks almost as much as a 5$ hooker on sunset boulevard, if you want to use it for anything other than general connectivity.

I donated my Broadcom based Belkin F5D7010 card as a prize to a competition on the NS forums, just to get rid of it.

Dutch

I have to agree. Even though I never bothered to replace the Broadcom miniPCI card in my laptop (due to the prices and antenna connectors involved with miniPCI cards), I don't use it for anything except sitting on the couch or in bed casually browsing the 'net. For any serious wireless activies, I put in my Orinoco or my Senao.