Difference between revisions of "Talk:Running Debian on ASUS WL-500G deluxe"

Revision as of 23:02, 26 June 2008

NOTE! CURRENTLY, WITH 2.6.19.2 KERNEL WIRELESS DOESN'T WORK for BOARDS WITH BROADCOM DEVICES (that is, it doesn't work on WL-500g Deluxe and Premium)!

If you have any questions, please subscribe to the mailing list on http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/debian-non-standard

Enabling wireless on boards where it works:

1. You need to install the wireless-tools package on the router.

2. Then, put the following modules in /etc/modules:

ieee80211_crypt_wep bcm43xx

I was using wep, so I needed the first module and it wasn't loading automatically.

3. The bcm43xx driver requires firmware. You can get it from here: http://boredklink.googlepages.com/wl_apsta.o .

4. Once you download it, you need to extract the firmware with the bcm43xx-fwcutter tool. There is a debian package here: http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/bcm43xx-fwcutter. You extract the firmware like this:

bcm43xx-fwcutter -w outputdir wl_apsta.o

where outputdir can be any directory that you want the firmware to be extracted into.

5. Next create the directory /lib/firmware on the router. Then copy over all the firmware in outputdir to /lib/firmware on the router like this:

scp outputdir/* root@router:/lib/firmware

6. Next, install hotplug on the router. udev should work also, but I couldn't get it to work right.

7. You need to set your wireless configuration in /etc/network/interfaces, the interface is eth2, for example, something like this:

auto eth2
iface eth2 inet static
    address 192.168.x.x
    netmask 255.255.255.0
    gateway 192.168.x.x
    wireless-essid networkname
    wireless-key 00000000000000000

8. You should be able to load the modules bcm43xx and ieee80211_crypt_wep manually, then bring up the interface by:

ifup eth2

If that doesn't work, rebooting should.

Can this method be used to install Debian on the WL-HDD?

Of getting wireless to work, or Debian? Broadcom wireless doesn't currently work, but Debian should.

I am a little confused, so sorry for bringing this up again: wireless doesn't work on the Deluxe version but on the premium? I ask because both of them have Broadcom wireless.

Another question: when using Debian, do I have access to nvram (and if not: do I need it to enable full RAM etc.)?

No, wireless doesn't work on deluxe and premium.

You have access to nvram partition, but 2.6 kernel doesn't use it - so you don't have to care.

This is pretty confusing - at top it says wireless doesn't work on the wl-500g premium followed by instructions labeled as how to get wireless working on the wl-500g premium. So which is it?

It DOESN'T work. The instructions there are generic for configuring wireless under Linux, in case someone has another board. I updated the paragraph to be more precise.

Did anybody have a look at http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/b43 ? (I will, when I get around to it, if nobody tells me that it did not help ;))