CentOS - Jan 2009 - Obtaining a newer Broadcomm (bcm43xx) driver for CentOS 5

I'm using CentOS 5 (w/all latest updates as of 2008-01-06) on an HP
laptop -- in fact, the exact laptop described here:
   http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/Laptops/HP/Pavilion-ze5300_Series

Ever since I switched from SHARED to OPEN authentication (and hence
from using ndiswrapper to the bcm43xx module, as explained on that
wiki page), I've been having packet loss and/or collision on the
wireless device, to the point that recently I've needed to plug in to
a wired network in order to get yum updates.  I'd like to try
installing a newer version of the driver, but I'm having a fail on
searching for the sources; I don't want to build an entire new kernel.

Does anyone have a pointer to those driver sources or better yet to a
DKMS or similar package for them?

On Wed, Jan 7, 2009 at 4:56 PM, Bart Schaefer <barton.schaefer at
gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm using CentOS 5 (w/all latest updates as of 2008-01-06) on an HP
Err, typo, that should say 2009-01-06.  D'oh.

> I'm using CentOS 5 (w/all latest updates as of 2008-01-06) on an HP
> laptop -- in fact, the exact laptop described here:
>   http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/Laptops/HP/Pavilion-ze5300_Series
>
> Ever since I switched from SHARED to OPEN authentication (and hence
> from using ndiswrapper to the bcm43xx module, as explained on that
> wiki page), I've been having packet loss and/or collision on the
> wireless device, to the point that recently I've needed to plug in to
> a wired network in order to get yum updates.  I'd like to try
> installing a newer version of the driver, but I'm having a fail on
> searching for the sources; I don't want to build an entire new kernel.
>
> Does anyone have a pointer to those driver sources or better yet to a
> DKMS or similar package for them?
The bcm43xx is no longer maintained, and it is my understanding that it 
will not be replaced in the RHEL 5 kernel.

<http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/b43>

Barry

Bart Schaefer wrote:
> I'm using CentOS 5 (w/all latest updates as of 2008-01-06) on an HP
> laptop -- in fact, the exact laptop described here:
>    http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/Laptops/HP/Pavilion-ze5300_Series
> 
> Ever since I switched from SHARED to OPEN authentication (and hence
> from using ndiswrapper to the bcm43xx module, as explained on that
> wiki page), I've been having packet loss and/or collision on the
> wireless device, to the point that recently I've needed to plug in to
> a wired network in order to get yum updates.  I'd like to try
> installing a newer version of the driver, but I'm having a fail on
> searching for the sources; I don't want to build an entire new kernel.
> 
> Does anyone have a pointer to those driver sources or better yet to a
> DKMS or similar package for them?

That driver seems to be in the latest mainline kernel 
(/drivers/net/wireless/b43) so you could grab the source from there and 
try compiling it out-of-tree against the centos kernel (or building your 
own dkms or kmod package).

Alternatively, I wonder if a more recent (working) version has been 
backported into 5.3. You may like to give the latest 5.3 beta kernel a 
quick try to see if it's working for you.