Broadcom wireless

[Bill Nottingham]

Jim Haynes (jhhaynes at earthlink.net) said: 
> I'm working with the 4 January rawhide live dvd and a Dell i1545
> laptop with Broadcom wireless.
> 
> There is a directory /lib/firmware/b43 that has some Broadcom
> stuff in it, but not the ones I need.
> 
> The b43 developers say that Fedora does not have the right to
> distributed the Broadcom stuff, that the end user has to go through
> a ritual spelled out in their wiki to get it.
> 
> If that's true, then the files should be removed from the distribution.
> If that's not true then there are a lot of files that need to be added
> http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/b43#devicefirmware

It's both true and not true.

The official Broadcom firmware, we do not have the right to ship;
ergo, we don't. You can use the b43-fwcutter program (which is in Fedora)
as described on their wiki, to get it.

However, there is *open* firmware for Broadcom wireless which we
can ship. It's in the b43-openfwwf package, and that's what you're seeing
on the live DVD. It does not work for all chipsets, though.

Bill