Ok so I am VERY new to Linux, this is my third day. So it is on my nerves, I am 17 never did anything commandline in my life except re installing windows on our game computer. So I have decided to switch my laptop to linux, right now it is ubuntu and if I like it later it might be Fedora 6 (heard that networking is better) The problem is that I cannot get online with my wireless card. Now I am by no means fluent in all this stuff so I need it in laymans terms. But I have a broadcom wireless card. Here is the info I have that I think will help.

Hardware Details:

Board: BCM94318MPG Rev 4.2

Chipset: BCM4318

MAC Address: (I think I Am supposed to keep that private)


Software Details:

3.100.64.0 built by: WinDDK

Driver date, provider, etc

Ok that makes no sense. I went into device manager and it was there and it says something about wireless in the network window. But I cannot get a connection. I don't know what to do or how to do it.

PLEASE HELP!!!


A.

I will assume that it is using the bcm43xx driver
if this is the case you will need someway to get files to it (eg. USB Drive, 10/100 ethernet) DL fwcutter from here and follow the instructions listed here
this should get you working if not try ndiswrapper, DL from here
then follow these instructions here
one of the 2 should get you up and running

What package do I download? #?

for the ndiswrapper DL I would choose 'ndiswrapper-1.47.tar.gz stable'
for the fwcutter DL I would choose 'bcm43xx-fwcutter-006.tar.bz2'

I have linked to the DL's that I would choose just click on those links and DL

hope this helps

I have not used Ubuntu, but if you are using the latest kernel you will need to make sure of which bcmxx driver is supplied with your distro. Using a file manager search for "bcmxx*" with case sensitivity turned off. Then, your approach to solving your problem will depend upon your search result. Under Fedora 7 the broadcom driver is "bcm43xx-mac80211.ko". If your driver is simply bcm43xx.ko then you will need to use fw-cutter to extract the firmware from your windows bcmwl5.sys file. If it is the bcm43xx-mac80211.ko version google the net using "BCM94318MPG bcm43xx-mac80211 firmware update". Hopefully you will find links leading you to the latest firmware (already extracted) for your card. It may also behoove you to google the net to determine whether your card is even compatible under Linux. Do a search using "BCM94318MPG linux compatibility".

Good Luck
svarmido