add support for 16bit pcmcia bcm4306 with unrecognized manf_id
jason o
stanwebber at gmail.com
Tue Jun 3 22:55:23 PDT 2025
this is the card in question:
https://wikidevi.wi-cat.ru/Inventel_802.11b/g_WLAN_PC_Card
the card i have was only intended for use with a consumer set-top dvd
player so no device drivers exist for the unusual 02d0:0425 vid:pid;
however, i have modified the inf of generic bcm4306 win2k/xp drivers
(bcmwl5.sys) to successfully work with this card in both wpa/wpa2
modes.
i believe the correct linux driver for this device is b43legacy as it
supports the near identical broadcom card (14e4:0425), albeit in a
32bit cardbus form factor. i have been unable to test this assertion
as 16bit pcmcia bus support in the linux kernel doesn't exactly follow
the same typical conventions as the pci/usb bus where unrecognized
devices are handled by writing a new vid:pid value to
sys/bus/pci/drivers/{driver}new_id.
i just don't understand the equivalent workflow for pcmcia. i tried
writing "0x3 02d0 0425 0 0 0 0 0 0 0" to
/sys/bus/pcmcia/drivers/ssb-pcmcia/new_id, but this failed. i also
tried my hand at recompiling the linux kernel by modifying the #define
SSB_BOARDVENDOR_BCM from 0x14E4 to 0x02d0 in /include/linux/ssb/ssb.h,
but this similarly failed.
how can i test this card with b43legacy? what is the correct procedure
to load the driver for unrecognized device ids? how do i make it
permanent in the kernel source if it works? thanks.
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