i have a compaq presario 2188CL laptop and would like to get my broadcom 54g wireless card to work over linux

i am close to getting it to work. I used ndiswrapper,

[root@localhost root]# ndiswrapper -l
Installed ndis drivers:
bcmwl5 present

in network config (NEAT), under the hardware tab, it says

Description: ndiswrapper
Type: wireless
device: wlan0
status: configured

when i hit edit to get properties, all of the blanks for IRQ, DMA, DMA1, MEM, IO, IO1, and IO2 are all empty

when i try to get DHCP, it says:

Error for wireless request "Set Encode" (8B2A) :
SET failed on device wlan0 ; Invalid argument.

Determining IP information for wlan0...
Failed

All of the wireless settings are set to my wireless network, although i believe that it is a hardware problem

any opinions are greatly appreciated

Sorry I dont have an answer for your question, but I never heard of ndiswrapper.... I have the same chipset on my laptop and I use driverloader to get it working. Why did you choose ndiswrapper? Do you know offhand if the wireless card can be put into "monitor mode" with ndiswrapper?? Thank you

-GSD

Sorry I cannot help yet. I had my card working then decided to upgrade Mandrake 10ce to official and it messed it up. I am getting the same results you are. I will try a fresh install hopefully tonight, the upgrade is also doing something wierd the the pcmcia, there is no power to the card unless the card is in at boot.

ndiswrapper is a program that uses windows drivers and gets them to work in linux, check out

ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net

i chose it because someone else recommended it to work on my card

If ndiswrapper doesnt work for you, try driverloader at www.linuxant.com . You have to pay $20 for a serial after the month trial period, but its definitely worth it to me


-GSD

im trying to avoid anything i have to pay for, but if thats the only option

I am posting this from my broadcom card with the ndiswrapper driver. I am using Mandrake 10 with version 0.6 of the ndiswrapper. Once I had installed the driver and pointed it to the windows driver, make sure you run ndiswrapper -m or manually edit the module.conf and/or modprobe.conf by adding the line

alias wlan0 ndiswrapper

you will also need to create or edit the ifcfg-wlan0 file adding

DEVICE=wlan0
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
ONBOOT=yes
MII_NOT_SUPPORTED=yes
KEY=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Then I restarted the machine and inserted the card.

I hope this helps.

allright, i made that file, and in NEAT, when i activate it, it says

Cannot get driver information: No such device

You will probably not be able to use NEAT. Once you have made ifcfg-wlan0 (is it in the right location, \etc\sysconfig\network-scripts). I would double check modprobe.conf and modules.conf.

Does the card light up when you insert it? I had a problem where the bottom pcmcia slot only woeks if the card is in at boot, but the top slot works fine.

Check out the acx100 howto in my signature for some tips eventho it is for a different card and driver.

the card is internal, and the light is on

and yes, the file is in the right place

oh, btw
i achieved redhat certified technician today

im so happy

sorry, im not trying to brag, but im just so excited