Broadcom wireless drivers... bcm43

[Steve Flynn]

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I'm currently running lucid on this machine, and I noticed last week
that surfing via wireless was getting a little slow. Lots of timeouts
and failures to resolve dns.

I originally put it down to my router needing a reboot so I gave the
little chap a kick. Made no difference. "Must be the ISP" I surmised and
waited for them to sort it out. In the meantime I moved over to the
laptop, running Karmic and Vista.

No problems at all... no timeouts, videos easily viewable, no problems
resolving DNS.

I then moved back to this machine, and hooked up to the router via
cable. Instant fix.

"Hmmm", said I, stroking non-existent beard.


> Mar 22 18:35:55 virus kernel: [  144.224029] b43 ssb0:0: firmware: requesting b43/ucode5.fw
> Mar 22 18:35:55 virus kernel: [  144.414990] b43 ssb0:0: firmware: requesting b43/pcm5.fw
> Mar 22 18:35:55 virus kernel: [  144.466683] b43 ssb0:0: firmware: requesting b43/b0g0initvals5.fw
> Mar 22 18:35:55 virus kernel: [  144.485249] b43 ssb0:0: firmware: requesting b43/b0g0bsinitvals5.fw
> Mar 22 18:35:55 virus kernel: [  144.624094] b43-phy0: Loading firmware version 351.126 (2006-07-29 05:54:02)
> Mar 22 18:35:55 virus kernel: [  144.624101] b43-phy0 warning: You are using an old firmware image. Support for old firmware will be removed soon (official deadline was July 2008).
> Mar 22 18:35:55 virus kernel: [  144.624105] b43-phy0 warning: You must go to http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/b43#devicefirmware and download the correct firmware for this driver version. Please carefully read all instructions on this website.
> Mar 22 18:35:55 virus kernel: [  144.676906] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): eth0: link is not ready
> Mar 22 18:36:01 virus kernel: [  149.854632] Velocity is AUTO mode
> Mar 22 18:36:02 virus kernel: [  151.608938] eth1: Link auto-negotiation speed 100M bps full duplex
> Mar 22 18:36:08 virus kernel: [  157.692043] b43-phy0: Loading firmware version 351.126 (2006-07-29 05:54:02)
> Mar 22 18:36:08 virus kernel: [  157.692050] b43-phy0 warning: You are using an old firmware image. Support for old firmware will be removed soon (official deadline was July 2008).
> Mar 22 18:36:08 virus kernel: [  157.692054] b43-phy0 warning: You must go to http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/b43#devicefirmware and download the correct firmware for this driver version. Please carefully read all instructions on this website.
> Mar 22 18:36:08 virus kernel: [  157.768395] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): eth0: link is not ready
> Mar 22 18:36:13 virus kernel: [  162.426499] Velocity is AUTO mode
> Mar 22 18:36:13 virus kernel: [  162.755791] Velocity is AUTO mode
> Mar 22 18:36:15 virus kernel: [  164.386370] eth1: Link auto-negotiation speed 100M bps full duplex
> Mar 22 18:36:16 virus kernel: [  164.841720] type=1503 audit(1269282976.025:13):  operation="open" pid=1705 parent=1638 profile="/sbin/dhclient3" requested_mask="r::" denied_mask="r::" fsuid=0 ouid=0 name="/var/lib/wicd/dhclient.conf"
> Mar 22 18:37:50 virus kernel: [  259.088018] Clocksource tsc unstable (delta = -160195402 ns)

Digging through /var/log/messages, I note that my broadcom drivers are
out of date and also out of support. I was getting the same message
under Karmic however... I trotted off to wireless.kernel.org and tried
to update the firmware for the card - following the ubuntu instructions
on that page, results in no difference whatsoever.

(I removed the fwcutter packages and then sudo apt-get install
b43-fwcutter - end result was precisely the same drivers being installed.)

I'm now at a bit of a loss to start troubleshooting this as I used the
same drivers in Karmic with no problems and I was initially using Lucid
with these same drivers without any problems. I'm not sure when the
issue actually occurred so I can't easily bisect what's been installed
to track down what the where the issue actually is. This makes reporting
a lucid bug problematical... maybe when kernel 2.6.32-16-generic was
installed or maybe not!

Any suggestions for a way forwards?

- -- 
Steve Flynn
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