[dundee] Broadcom wireless chipsets in laptops

[Gordon Dunlop]

Hi All,

Some people have been getting  problems with Broadcom chipsets in their 
wireless cards for their laptops. It should be no problem now with 
modern distros,  the Linux kernel has drivers  for the  Broadcom  
chipset since  kernel 2.6.17. The main thing is to install the broadcom 
firmware which has been reversed engineered. The difference in drivers 
and firmware  is that firmware  is the software that allows the hardware 
to operate and drivers is the  software  that allows the operating 
system to control it, similar to digital TV working in Linux. A good 
explanation is given here:

http://www.thejemreport.com/mambo/content/view/293

Most Linux distributions have a version of bcm43xx-fwcutter, a package 
that has the Broadcom chipsets firmware , if they don't you can download 
from here:

http://developer.berlios.de/project/showfiles.php?group_id=4547

All it does is to put all the Broadcom chipsets firmware into 
/lib/firmware and you should be up and running.

Gordon