<html><head><meta name="qrichtext" content="1" /></head><body style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Sans Serif">
<p><span style="color:#13770f">On Thursday 26 February 2009 05:56:55 pm Jeff Falgout wrote:</span></p>
<p><span style="color:#13770f">> I've been down the bcm43xx road a ton - $work get's Dell laptops with</span></p>
<p><span style="color:#13770f">> the Broadcom wireless nic.</span></p>
<p><span style="color:#13770f">> I've had Ubuntu working with it - I ditched the network manager</span></p>
<p><span style="color:#13770f">> applets and went command line.</span></p>
<p><span style="color:#13770f">></span></p>
<p><span style="color:#13770f">> iwconfig</span></p>
<p><span style="color:#13770f">> iwlist</span></p>
<p><span style="color:#13770f">></span></p>
<p><span style="color:#13770f">> are your friends here along with /var/log/messages</span></p>
<p></p>
<p>I've also developed more than a passing friendship with dhclient.conf and <span style="font-weight:600">ifstatus-dhcp</span>. I wasn't going to post any of these gory details, but Jeff inspired me with his plug for the command line.</p>
<p></p>
<p>I haven't worked with Broadcom wireless but my own experiences with my SMC card seem uncanniliy similar to Collins'. Since Ubuntu reached the 7's and SuSE the 11's, wireless on my Dell Inspiron has sucked intensely.</p>
<p></p>
<p>Knetworkmanager went from hit-and-miss to miss. Went back to Kinternet which worked about one time in ten. Tried wicd and that was a treat. I poised the mouse over my URL in Firefox, hit connect in wicd and clicked simultaneously and usually the web page would load before wicd announced it was "putting down the interface." What in the frickin name of Nonsense is that all about?</p>
<p></p>
<p>In any case and like Jeff, I went in desperation to the command line and config files.</p>
<p></p>
<p>When I ran <span style="font-weight:600">ifstatus-dhcp wlan0</span>, I saw that the gateway and dns servers were ok but the ip address indicated was from the last hotspot used. I tried to release it with <span style="font-weight:600">dhclient -r wlan0</span> and get a new lease with <span style="font-weight:600">dhclient -1 wlan0</span>, but could only get... </p>
<p><span style="color:#a54117">Can't bind to dhcp address: Address already in use</span></p>
<p><span style="color:#a54117">Please make sure there is no other dhcp server</span></p>
<p><span style="color:#a54117">running and that there's no entry for dhcp or</span></p>
<p><span style="color:#a54117">bootp in /etc/inetd.conf.</span></p>
<p>...in response. I finally took a shot in the dark and went into /etc/sysconfig/network/dhcp and set</p>
<p>DHCLIENT_RELEASE_BEFORE_QUIT="yes"</p>
<p>then ran <span style="font-weight:600">ifdown</span> and <span style="font-weight:600">ifup</span> and to my utter amazement it worked. And it continues to work with the wireless network coming up on its own when I boot up. No network managers needed.</p>
<p>[note: I also set a value in DHCLIENT_LEASE_TIME which defaults to infinite. This was recommended for laptops in the comments section of the file.]</p>
<p></p>
<p>Will likely bring a chuckle to some at this grossly amateurish attempt at hacking, but hey, I'm happy (for the moment).</p>
<p></p>
<p>msf</p>
<p></p>
</body></html>