Using b43 with broadcom 4312 on hp2133 yields "device not ready"

[Larry Finger]

On 04/14/2017 06:28 AM, registration at out-of-bounds.de wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> I've been struggling to get the broadcom 4312 wlan chip to work on a hp2133
> laptop. According to all documentation I found this should work and it almost
> does: Could extract firmware and driver is loading but network manager in Fedora
> only shows "device not ready" (but I can use to wireless switch to toggle to
> "deactivated"). Now I'm out of ideas and hope anybody can help. Details enclosed
> below
>
> ----
> HISTORY
> hardware is hp 2133 laptop
> wlan is enabled in bios
> distro is fedora 25
>
> yum install broadcom-wl
> yum install akmod-wl
> yum install kmod-wl
> yum install b43-fwcutter
> yum install wget
>
> used wget to download broadcom-wl-4.178.10.4.tar.bz2
> wget http://downloads.openwrt.org/sources/broadcom-wl-4.178.10.4.tar.bz2
> used fw-cutter to extract firmware from wl_apsta.o to /lib/firmware
> b43-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware wl_apsta.o
>
> used wget to download broadcom-wl-5.100.138.tar.bz2
> wget http://www.lwfinger.com/b43-firmware/broadcom-wl-5.100.138.tar.bz2
> used fw-cutter to extract firmware from wl_apsta.o to /lib/firmware
> b43-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware wl_apsta.o
>
> added modules to /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist as per resource #1
> according to resource #3 b43 should be the correct driver and is loaded
> lspci -nn -d 14e4:
> according to resource #0 b43 should support 14e4:4315 (bcm4312)
>
> made backups of firmware directories and freshly created above versions
> created symlink to point to active version
> only b43 directory affected by extraction
> ls -ld /lib/firmware/b*
>
>
> STATUS
> using b43 driver and firmware 4.178.x
> network manager shows up during boot
> blue led is on but device is not ready
> wireless switch is responsive (can toggle between not ready and deactivated)
>
> using b43 driver and firmware 5.100.x
> network manager shows up during boot
> blue led is on but device is not ready
> wireless switch is responsive (can toggle between not ready and deactivated)
>
>
> RESOURCES
> #0 https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/b43
> #1 http://www.linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/b43/#Fedora
> #2
> https://ask.fedoraproject.org/en/question/46860/how-to-setup-broadcom-4312-wireless/
>
> #3 https://wiki.debian.org/bcm43xx
> #4 http://www.linlap.com/hp_2133
>
> CONFIGURATION
> uname -a
> Linux hp-2133 4.9.13-200.fc25.i686+PAE #1 SMP Mon Feb 27 17:11:30 UTC 2017 i686
> i686 i386 GNU/Linux
> lspci -nn | grep Broadcom
> 02:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Limited BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY
> [14e4:4315] (rev ff)
> 07:03.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Broadcom Limited NetXtreme BCM5788 Gigabit
> Ethernet [14e4:169c] (rev 03)
> dmesg
> [   17.442229] b43-phy0: Broadcom 4312 WLAN found (core revision 15)
> [   17.460089] b43-phy0: Found PHY: Analog 6, Type 5 (LP), Revision 1
> [   17.460104] b43-phy0: Found Radio: Manuf 0x17F, ID 0x2062, Revision 2, Version 0
> [   17.471228] Broadcom 43xx driver loaded [ Features: PNLS ]
> ----
>
> Thanks in advance and happy easter holidays!
>
> BTW: I could also not compile the proprietary driver, but that's another issue.
> I would really prefer to go with b43

Why are you blacklisting b43?

The only other things I see are as follows:

This line from the dmesg output looks strange.
[   53.905515] b43-phy0 ERROR: PHY init: Channel switch to default failed

The rev ff in the lspci line is also strange. My BCM4312 shows rev 01.

02:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Limited BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY 
[14e4:4315] (rev ff)

My BCM4312 device is in a 32-bit netbook that I seldom run. It will take a 
couple of days to get its kernel updated to the current version so that I can 
test the latest b43 code. I will report those results ASAP.

Larry