Been trying to convert to Linux for a while now but have been unsure how to do it. Finally found Xandros, liked the look of it (Windows user you understand), and installed it to dual boot with XP. The one problem seems to be zero support for wireless. I have researched a bit and found out that something called Ndiswrapper should be able to help. Went and got it. Read various help and install files, got thoroughly confused and seriously considered swearing at my beloved pc. I have noticed that on pretty much all the forums I have visited and in all the help files I have read, existing Linux users seem to think that people who need help understand the strange language of Linuxworld. I DON'T!! Please! Is there someone out there who understands that I am a total know nothing when it comes to Linux, who can help me to install Ndiswrapper, then tell me how to put my driver into it.

The driver I want to use is bcmwl5.inf and I downloaded the latest stable version (it says) of Ndiswrapper. I have Xandros3.0

Please hold back on the techno jargon till I understand it better, I really am a complete newbie at this.

Many thanks.

Keith.

Don't think it's likely you'll get much help this way. As I understood, you have found some howto's. Try following them and post concrete questions when you cannot understand what to do. If you can't understand some line in documentation post it and some before/after it.

Raskin is right, you really haven't asked a question we can help you with. What I would do is to look at the install instructions at the ndiswrapper wiki (see my sig for the link) and ask about the things you don't understand or that don't seem to work.

And welcome to LQ!

It's a bit difficult to explain how to use a highly technical operating system without using techno jargon. Many of us don't even "know" how to explain how to do things without using it. It's a bit like explaining to someone an idea from theoretical physics that hasn't ever had a high school calculas class. They'll kinda get what your saying in theory, but will they know how it really works and could they do it themselves? Doubtful.

Anyway, I have that same card in my laptop, however, there are many hardware variations of it. My laptop is HP Pavilion DV4305US. What I did was go to HP's site and look up "DV4305US" in the driver's section, and download their WINDOWS driver (for WindowsXP), the same exact one that I would use if I were installing the card under Windows. You seem to already have the bcmwl5.inf, so you must have done this already. You also need the bcmwl5.sys, it is probably in the same place as your bcmwl5.inf. I don't know where you are viewing these files from, weather a file manager, or the terminal, but you need to figure out where they are. Make note of where those two files are, and make sure they're in the same directory. Try typing "updatedb; locate bcmwl5.inf" to figure out where they are. Now, in a terminal, go to the directory that the ndiswrapper is "cd /whereever/you/put/ndiswrapper/thing" , and type "ls", it should be a source .tar.gz (or .tar.bz2), the same that you downloaded. If it is a "tar.gz" file, type "tar -zxvf ndiswrapperfile.tar.gz" (the same filename as you see, not what I put), and it will extract it. If it is a "tar.bz2" file, type "tar -jxvf ndiswrapperfile.tar.gz" and it will extract. Now cd into the directory that extracting the file created. Type "make", and it should come up with a buncha stuff, and probably take a few minutes, don't worry, this is suppost to happen. It'll all go good unless it stops early and has a buncha stuff on the screen about an error. Once this is finished, su to root "su root" (and then it'll ask you for your root password, so type it in and press enter), now you should be root, so type "make install" and it will install ndiswrapper. Now try typing "ndiswrapper" and see if it comes up. If it does, good. Now go to the directory where you had the bcmwl5.inf and bcmwl5.sys and type "ndiswrapper -i bcmwl5.inf" and then type "ndiswrapper -l" to see if its in there. If it says hardware present yadda yadda, type "lsmod" to make sure the ndiswrapper module is in place, if it's not, type "modprobe ndiswrapper" and it should put it in. Now type "iwconfig wlan0 essid YOURWLANNAME" (where YOURWLANNAME is what your essid really is), and then setup the rest of your network like normal with the interface as wlan0, it's prolly just "dhcpcd wlan0" and it'll do something for a second then drop you back at a prompt. Should work now, test by pinging something "ping www.yahoo.com". Sorry if this doesn't work, I did like 95% of this by memory, but I think it should. Post again if something doesn't work right.

Marshall