WLAN not working on Dell 8600 FC3
 

Hey all --

(linux wireless newbie alert)
I've installed FC3 as a dual-boot on my recently purchased Dell 8600. The install went smoothly and things are working well....with the exception of the internal Dell 1350 wireless card functionality.

I installed ndiswrapper from illegaloperations.bounceme.net, and it appeared to be successful. However, when I completed the gui configuration, it could not pull an IP address. When I reboot, the wireless card fails during startup scripts with the following error:
Device wlan0 has different MAC address than expected, ignoring.


I then typed the following commands to try to diagnose the issue:

[root@localhost proc]# cat /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-wlan0
# Please read /usr/share/doc/initscripts-*/sysconfig.txt
# for the documentation of these parameters.
IPV6INIT=no
ONBOOT=yes
USERCTL=no
PEERDNS=yes
GATEWAY=
TYPE=Wireless
DEVICE=wlan0
HWADDR=00:0b:7d:0b:1b:ef
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
NETMASK=
DHCP_HOSTNAME=
IPADDR=
DOMAIN=
ESSID=DHLSSID
CHANNEL=9
MODE=Auto
RATE=Auto


[root@localhost proc]# ndiswrapper -l
Installed ndis drivers:
bcmwl5a present


root@localhost sit0]# iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

sit0 no wireless extensions.


[root@localhost sit0]# iwconfig sit0
sit0 no wireless extensions.



Can anyone identify what is wrong with the situation here? Why does the wlan0 device not show up when I issue the iwconfig command? What is this sit0 device? Why are their no wireless "extensions", although ndiswrapper has installed a driver? And what the heck is the "different mac address" error about, when I've confirmed through a ifconfig wlan0 command that the mac address is the same as listed in WinXP, where the wireless card works fine??

Any help much appreciated!!