User Feedback :: DSL and Broadcom NIC

I have been distro hopping for the last year. I have a multi boot system with WinXP and 4-6 Linux distros. I just tried DSL 3.0.1 on my desktop PC with a Broadcom 4400 NIC. My first try with DSL resulted in the card being detected, but configuration failed. Then I remembered an old problem I had with this card.

One of the distros I have tried is Mepis. I found that after running Mepis, WinXP could not initialize the card. Mepis apparently leaves the card in some state that WinXP couldn't cope with. I found that the card could be restored to a "standard" state that WinXP could cope with by removing power from the card while the computer was shutdown. Just shutting down would not restore the standard state, all power had to be removed from the card. (I got no response from Mepis about this problem.)

Then I found a new WinXP driver for the Broadcom card which solved the problem. The new driver could cope with the unusual state that Mepis leaves the card in. None of the other dozen or so Linux distros that I tried had any problems with the unusual state that Mepis leaves the card in.

So, when DSL could not initialize the card, I tried the power down and unplug solution that I had used with the old WinXP driver. Yep, you guessed it, DSL initializes the card with no problems. But, what a pain. Everytime I run Mepis and then want to run DSL, I have to power down and then unplug the power cord to get the card into a state that DSL can cope with.

It would be nice if the DSL Broadcom driver could be modified to cope with unusual startup states. Most likely, Mepis leaves a bit set to some unexpected value.

Anyway, thanks for listening to my complaint, jimbo

original here.