# HP Laptop with broadcom and a tactile button

## Exinferis

So after endless hours of googling this problem, im not finding any solutions, so i hope some of you gentoo wizards can help me out  :Smile: 

and for the record, im pretty new at gentoo, so be gentle   :Razz: 

Ive got a hp 6735b laptop, with a broadcom 4322 wlan card, and i cant get it activated.

The laptop has these buttons(seen lots of names for them, tactile buttons, killswitch) orange is off, and blue is on, the other buttons react to touch, but not much is happening.

lspci doesnt really say anything about wlan, only broadcom it mentions is the normal wired network. Tried a number of things, but i cant get that damn light to turn blue!

Anyone have any clues to how i should try and do this?  :Smile: 

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## rh1

I would have thought it would show up in lspci regardless, but maybe not. 

Your post doesn't really say what you've tried , so i'll assume nothing and start at the begining. 

If your sure about your which wireless card you have then you want to "emerge broadcom-sta" if you haven't already.

Most likely you'll need to reconfigure your kernel first, You'll know because it will fail to build.

You need these options either builtin or as modules

Please note that Generic IEEE 802.11 Networking stack isn't enabled. It's usually enabled by default, you need to turn it off.

Also make sure Sonics Silicon Backpane support is off too.

Using "make menuconfig":

```
[*] Networking support  ---> 

    -*-   Wireless  --->

        <M>   cfg80211 - wireless configuration API

        {M}   Common routines for IEEE802.11 drivers 

        < >   Generic IEEE 802.11 Networking Stack (mac80211)

Device Drivers  --->

    [*] Network device support  ---> 

        [*]   Wireless LAN  --->

            <M>   IEEE 802.11 for Host AP (Prism2/2.5/3 and WEP/TKIP/CCMP)

    Sonics Silicon Backplane  --->

        < > Sonics Silicon Backplane support
```

After rebuilding your kernel, emerging broadcom-sta, and rebooting with the new kernel run as root :

```
ifconfig
```

You should see a listing for your wireless interface. Keep in mind it may be called eth1 instead of wlan0.

Provided your card shows after that, then you have a few options depending on how you want to connect, probably with a gui app like nm-applet or wicd.....

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## Exinferis

(sorry for a late response, i was foolish enough to ask the question before going on a vacation)

ive tried that solution, but i have not been able to get it to work

ifconfig gives me 

```
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:25:b3:52:5f:59  

          inet addr:10.0.0.3  Bcast:10.0.0.255  Mask:255.255.255.0

          inet6 addr: fe80::225:b3ff:fe52:5f59/64 Scope:Link

          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1

          RX packets:15544 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0

          TX packets:10920 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0

          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 

          RX bytes:19348164 (18.4 MiB)  TX bytes:1394001 (1.3 MiB)

          Interrupt:16 

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  

          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0

          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host

          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1

          RX packets:20 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0

          TX packets:20 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0

          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 

          RX bytes:1000 (1000.0 B)  TX bytes:1000 (1000.0 B)

```

But as i have been reading up on different forums, with other linux distros, they can actually activate the wifi with the tactile button, i can turn on and off sound, but nothing happens with the wifi button

which is where my problem lies me thinks   :Confused: 

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## rh1

Your problem isn't with the tactile button. Your system can't even find your wireless card or it would show in ifconfig regardless of that button being on.

Please post the output of 

```
lspci -v
```

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## Amity88

I have an HP laptop too, it's got a broadcom 4311 wireless Lan module. You need to enable the b43 drivers in the kernel first, recompile it & then install the firmware using 

# emerge b43-firmware

Once you are done with that, we need iwconfig so

# emerge wireless-tools

because, ifconfig won't list wlan0 unless it's up. And you need iwconfig to see its status. Finally, if like most of us you use WPA encryption with your router, you would want to get wpa_supplicant

# emerge wpa_supplicant

if you have any problems just ask, I was confused too before the first time I got it to work  :Smile: 

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## MadMaxCZ

 *Exinferis wrote:*   

> 
> 
> Ive got a hp 6735b laptop, with a broadcom 4322 wlan card, and i cant get it activated.
> 
> Anyone have any clues to how i should try and do this? 

 

I have the same laptop...

Emerge net-wireless/broadcom-sta and follow the comments from compilation (it will give you hints, what has to be enabled in kernel config).

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## kindofblue

Have you been able to get your 4322 wlan card to work? I also have an HP laptop with this card. I emerged broadcom-sta (version 5.100.82.38-r1), without any luck. After loading the wl module, I see this for the network interface:

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> # iwconfig eth1
> 
> eth1      IEEE 802.11abgn  ESSID:""  Nickname:""
> ...

 

I then start wpa_supplicant, but nothing happens. Also, the wireless LED on the laptop stays orange, instead of turning blue. If I run wpa_supplicant interactively I can see this:

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> # wpa_supplicant -ieth1 -Dwext -c/etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf -d
> 
> Initializing interface 'eth1' conf '/etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf' driver 'wext' ctrl_interface 'N/A' bridge 'N/A'
> ...

 

Thanks in advance for any help.

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## bloedie

Hi.

I had the same problem. This helped me out.

http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/Broadcom_43xx

Good luck!

Cu.

Bloedie

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## kindofblue

Ok thanks. Unfortunately the article didn't help. I can't even set the txpower with iwconfig:

```

# iwconfig eth1 txpower on

# iwconfig eth1

eth1      IEEE 802.11abgn  ESSID:""  Nickname:""

          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.412 GHz  Access Point: Not-Associated   

          Bit Rate:300 Mb/s   Tx-Power:off   

          Retry min limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off

          Power Managementmode:All packets received

          Link Quality=5/5  Signal level=0 dBm  Noise level=0 dBm

          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0

          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

```

which shows that txpower is still off.

Broadcom has opened up the code for its drivers and work is being done to integrate the code in the 2.6.37 kernel (http://lwn.net/Articles/404248/). Hopefully I'll get better results when this driver becomes available.

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