Ubuntu
iw package

Cannot set wireless regulatory domain on Dell Inspiron Mini9

Bug #370046 reported by Daniel Ellis
58
This bug affects 10 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
iw (Ubuntu)
Confirmed
Undecided
Unassigned

Bug Description

The 904 release notes state to use "iw reg" to set the wireless regulatory domain:

http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/releasenotes/904#Setting%20wireless%20regulatory%20domain%20via%20module%20option%20no%20longer%20supported

However the following command fails on the Dell Inspiron mini9:-

 $ sudo iw reg set GB
 nl80211 not found.

This is using Ubuntu 904 netbook remix with the proprietary Broadcom STA wireless driver.

The effect of this is that the mini9 cannot connect to wireless networks that use channels 12 or 13 (in the UK).

This is the output of iwlist channel:

 $ sudo iwlist channel
 lo no frequency information.
 eth0 no frequency information.
 eth1 11 channels in total; available frequencies :
          Channel 01 : 2.412 GHz
          Channel 02 : 2.417 GHz
          Channel 03 : 2.422 GHz
          Channel 04 : 2.427 GHz
          Channel 05 : 2.432 GHz
          Channel 06 : 2.437 GHz
          Channel 07 : 2.442 GHz
          Channel 08 : 2.447 GHz
          Channel 09 : 2.452 GHz
          Channel 10 : 2.457 GHz
          Channel 11 : 2.462 GHz
          Current Channel:1

Revision history for this message
Oliver Horn (oliverhorn) wrote :

Hi,

same Problem here on a Lenovo Ideapad S10e netbook with a Broadcom BCM4312 wlan controller and Jaunty:

oliver@idefix:~$ sudo iw reg set eu
nl80211 not found.
oliver@idefix:~$

Oliver

Revision history for this message
PeterPall (peterpall) wrote :

Hello, theren

according to http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Documentation/iw iw is still only for softMAC devices --- which measn wireless cards that don't handle certain tasks in the hardware but expect the software to do them for them. Seems like you both have complete cards, so iw is not yet responsible for you. Or - it is being heavily developed right now - it does not yet work for you due to another reason.

In most of the other drivers I know you can switch the regulatory domain by using a module parameter in /etc/modprobe.d. Hope that might help.

Gunter.

Revision history for this message
John Lawrence Aspden (ubuntu-aspden) wrote :

Howdy, same problem with a BC4322 in a dell mini 10v with both dell ubuntu and ubuntu 9.04.
proprietary driver STA, or wl ignores regulatory domain. b43 driver which apparently would see it through the cfg80211 mechanism doesn't work for this card.

Have tried

options wl ieee80211_regdom=EU

in /etc/modprobe.d/options, but no joy. driver refuses to load with

wl: Unknown parameter `ieee80211_regdom'

in dmesg.

Anyone got any ideas?

Revision history for this message
Daniel Ellis (danellisuk) wrote :

I have located the release notes for the propriety Broadcom wireless driver at http://www.broadcom.com/docs/linux_sta/README.txt

It sounds to me that this driver cannot be configured with the appropriate regulatory domain and therefor it cannot use these channels. From the document:-

"Why aren't channels 12 & 13 supported? The driver only supports the default
locale setting wich is ROW (Rest Of World) which does not include channels 12 or 13."

I expect this is something that will have to be taken up with the laptop supplier, in my case I will have to take this up directly with Dell.

Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

Changed in iw (Ubuntu):
status: New → Confirmed
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