Looks like Broadcom is now offering a slightly modified b44 driver on their web site, and not their proprietary bcm4400 driver. From the README in their linux-1.00g tarball: "The b44 driver from this Broadcom package is almost identical to the b44 driver in the latest 2.6 upstream Linux kernel. It includes some additional kernel compatible code to allow it to compile on older 2.6 and some 2.4 kernels. The version number is also similar but generally has a one letter suffix at the end, (e.g. 1.00a) to distinguish it from the in-kernel b44 driver." Looks like they are now modifying the open source driver itself for older kernels. It might be time to consider removing net-misc/bcm4400 entirely from portage, unless you feel that the patches Broadcom is offering to the open source kernel for older kernels merits continuation, etc.
Added to package.mask
I always had problem with the in-kernel driver. Sounds like Broadcom now "supports" the development of the in-kerner driver. Hopefully all bugs, that i have experienced, have been fixed in the in-kernel driver by now.
Please retest the in-kernel one now (Linux 2.6.17) and if there are problems, file bugs and mark them as blockers of this bug.
142609 should block this bug. I left a detailed comment under that bug explaining the fact that the kernel driver does not appear to work with an older BCM4401 controller.
the in-kernel module does not support WOL (Wake on LAN), while the external bcm4400 does for the wol option "g". # ethtool -i eth0 driver: b44 version: 1.00 firmware-version: bus-info: 0000:00:0f.0 # ethtool -s eth0 wol g Cannot get current wake-on-lan settings: Operation not supported not setting wol
Please file a separate bug for this
I filed a bug for the wol problem: bug #150365
2.6.18 should be stable before we remove this (bug #150365)
# Daniel Drake <dsd@gentoo.org> (29 Aug 2006) # pending removal, obsoleted by in-kernel driver (bug #145525) # if you have any reason to use this package over the in-kernel version, # speak up now! net-misc/bcm4400 Time to die... :)
Sorry about the delay in filing the upstream bug, its done now.
Not removing just yet, as we still have the open bug
removed