Problem with b43 driver

Problem with b43 driver

[Patrick McMunn]

A while back, a fix was issued for the b43 driver where the driver was
not issuing beacons in ad-hoc mode (
http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/longterm/v2.6.33/ChangeLog-2.6.33.20
). I have a card which uses the driver, and it did allow me to use
ad-hoc mode for sharing an internet connection. However, I think there
is still some problem with the driver. When I start up my laptop (with
an Intel wireless card) and try to connect to the connection which I
created on my desktop which uses the b43 driver, there are occasions
when it detects the network immediately, and there are occasions when
it never does detect it even if I go to my desktop and stop then
restart the network. I may wait 15 or 20 minutes before giving up on
it. At the same time, my laptop may detect 3 or 4 wireless networks
from neighbors' homes, but it will not detect mine. So I suspect that
the b43 driver is somehow issuing beacons inconsistently. I'll be
happy to supply any additional information I can upon request. Another
thing that may or may not be related is that even when I do connect,
the machines can only ping each other if I connect using channel 10.
No other channel seems to work even if they successfully connect.

-- 
Patrick McMunn

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Re: Problem with b43 driver

[Larry Finger]

On 03/02/2012 11:59 AM, Patrick McMunn wrote:
> A while back, a fix was issued for the b43 driver where the driver was
> not issuing beacons in ad-hoc mode (
> http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/longterm/v2.6.33/ChangeLog-2.6.33.20
> ). I have a card which uses the driver, and it did allow me to use
> ad-hoc mode for sharing an internet connection. However, I think there
> is still some problem with the driver. When I start up my laptop (with
> an Intel wireless card) and try to connect to the connection which I
> created on my desktop which uses the b43 driver, there are occasions
> when it detects the network immediately, and there are occasions when
> it never does detect it even if I go to my desktop and stop then
> restart the network. I may wait 15 or 20 minutes before giving up on
> it. At the same time, my laptop may detect 3 or 4 wireless networks
> from neighbors' homes, but it will not detect mine. So I suspect that
> the b43 driver is somehow issuing beacons inconsistently. I'll be
> happy to supply any additional information I can upon request. Another
> thing that may or may not be related is that even when I do connect,
> the machines can only ping each other if I connect using channel 10.
> No other channel seems to work even if they successfully connect.

Does your laptop have a reasonable operating system that will let you run 
wireshark in promiscuous mode? If so, please capture the traffic when you are 
having this problem and check to see if the beacons are present.

That problem of needing to use channel 10 seems a bit strange.

Larry