On 07/11/2010 11:42 AM, medwinz wrote:

On Sun, Jul 11, 2010 at 11:09 PM, Larry Finger wrote:

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On 07/11/2010 07:37 AM, Lars Müller wrote:

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On Sat, Jul 10, 2010 at 11:56:31PM -0500, Larry Finger wrote:

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There is an uncorrectable problem with kernel 2.6.34 for some Netbook computers with Broadcom BCM4313 802.11b/g wireless devices. As this is the kernel in openSUSE 11.3, some users will be affected. The driver problem is fixed in kernel 2.6.35; however, the fix is too invasive to be backported to 2.6.34.

The main problem with this bug is that the system freezes with no clue as to why it happens. It will happen for NET CD, DVD, and Live CD media. The workaround to prevent the freeze is simple; however, it will need to be distributed to users. What is the best way to make this information available to users? Sample text for the workaround follows:

Time to create http://en.opensuse.org/Bugs:Most_Annoying_Bugs_11.3

Or branch it from http://en.opensuse.org/Bugs:Most_Annoying_Bugs_11.3_dev

I'm not sure if "to branch" is the right wording in wiki sprech.

a) Don't limit the article to netbook computers. Even other systems using this hardware will suffer from the issue.

It seems that the particular "feature" that shows this issue is limited to Netbook motherboard design where the wireless chip is built in. If there is a separate PCIe card, then the problem does not occur.

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b) Suggest the easier solutions first. Getting a 2.6.35 based kernel for 11.3 might be the harder way for the majority of users.

Thanks for the suggestion.

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The "For either of the latter two options, your wireless will break whenever your kernel is updated." I suggest to change into a "might break". The kernel update approach tries to circumvent this as good as possible. Here one of the kernel dudes might jump in and point us to the backround of the story.

I am one of the b43 dudes, in fact, I found the fix once I got my hands on a unit with the problem. Unfortunately, it was too late for 2.6.34 and too invasive for 2.6.34.Y. The only hope would be to put this patch in the openSUSE collection, but that will may not be possible.

Just a quick report. I downloaded 11.3 GM candidates for i586 (Build 0702) and installed it on HP Mini 311 (Intel Atom N280, with WLAN Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g (rev 01) and Nvidia Ion).

Installation went ok. And like RC2, it stop on reboot when calling b43-pci-bridge. As workaround I should mount the root partition to other openSUSE installation and add a blacklist file for broadcom for bcm43xx, ssb, b43. Reboot to 11.3 went ok after that and installation continue. To activate wlan I use broadcom-wl package from OBS.

Rather than mounting from another installation, just add "brokenmodules=ssb" to the boot line. As a side effect, ssb will be added to the blacklist automatically. The fix for this problem has been submitted to the 2.6.34.Y stable tree. Once there, it will be propagated to openSUSE. The next kernel upgrade for 11.3 should fix the problem. Larry -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-testing+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-testing+help@opensuse.org