Thank you for the 101, this believe it or not has been very helpful. When I had my class on Linux Systems the Linux OS we setup was FC4 and unfortunately the instructor was some what lazy so I walked away from the class only learning that it was different operating system. Shows you learn more if you get in it and teach your self.

Another quick question. If I login as Root and do all this for the ndiswrapper and then login under my username will that affect anything?

Nope, that shouldn't affect a thing.

That said, one of the Linux habits you should consider picking up is only using root when you absolutely, positively have to. That gets you using tools like su or sudo.

Oh, but there are. Lots of. Here at LQ you'll find many Broadcom + ndiswrapper how-tos and threads with solutions; you'll find wpa_supplicant howtos as well (to get WPA encryption working). I have to admit most of them are not "good" in the sense that, after trying them out one by one when I got my first wireless laptop, they look good and basically have everything you need, but it's just either represented so that you don't really understand it well enough unless you already know how it's working, or then the writer just got it working somehow, wrote some commands s/he remembered to have issued and said this is how it works.

NDISwrapper isn't distribution-specific. It's installation is, but it should not be a problem. Once it's installed properly, it's usage is (including wpa_supplicant now that I studied it a bit) very easy. I know the frustration that comes when you don't get it working, you don't understand it well enough to figure out what's wrong (especially with wpa_supplicant) and in the end just start thinking it's crap (no it isn't).

If I find enough time somewhere (still looking) I'll try to write a clean, short and understandable how-to for ndiswrapper installation and usage (maybe I'll use bcm43xx as an example card, because it seems to be problematic for many people -- though it isn't when you learn how it's done). Until then you can feel free to IM me and I'll give you step-by-step instructions in real time, as long as I'm not in a rush at that moment. I even happen to have the source packages for ndiswrapper (and Broadcom 43xx Windows driver files), so if there are no binaries available for your distribution it can still be sorted out.

Your primary place to get packages is your package manager - yumex/yum (Fedora), synaptic/apt-get (Ubuntu, Debian) and so on. Be it kernel source/headers or ndiswrapper[-utils], that's the place to go. And if you can't find anything there, then you'll start working with the source code..

Got it installed
 

Okay I got the kernel stuff taken care of and all that got the ndiswrapper installed cause when I do ndiswrapper -l i get I have also added b43 and the ssb to the black list rebooted and turned off wpa_supplicant and I still get that my hardware wont work... what Am I doing wrong.

A few questions:

- Where did you get the drivers? If you look your card up on the ndiswrapper wiki, they will likely link to a driver known to work. If that comes up dry, try getting the latest XP drivers from the manufacturers web site.

- Were there any errors when you ran ndiswrapper -i? Were the bcmwl5.inf and bcmwl5.sys files in the same directory when you ran ndiswrapper -i?

- Are there any errors when you load the ndiswrapper module?

Also be sure to look in your system logs (/var/log/syslog and /var/log/messages) and the output of the dmesg command and see if ndiswrapper is complaining about anything.

More than likely you've just got a version of the Windows driver that ndiswrapper doesn't like. That used to happen a LOT with ndiswrapper.

So close, well I will give these a look later on tonight its time for me to fight the traffic thanks for the help guys I will get a chance to look at these later on tonight.

Digging through the log files
 

At the advice of Hangdog to look through the log files particularly syslog and messages. I looked in /var/log unfortunately I only saw one of the former '/var/log/messages' looking through this I did find out some of the error messages that I see have detailed explanations.

I also found this

Digging through this, and seeing the ling to linuxwireless dot org I am taken again to the solution of using the firmware cutter tool.

There were no messages about ndiswrapper. when I ran the install it did throw some messages about kmod but i took care of that by using the 1.47 not 1.46 I had a friend that was helping me with the other stuff for the kernel and he had stated was worried about the 4k stack so try the 1.46

Hm. The errors you posted are definitely related to b43/bcm43xx and NOT ndiswrapper. Nidswrapper isn't affected by the firmware, so if you're sticking with it, you can pretty safely ignore these. Of course if you do use b43 at some point, you will need to install the correct firmware because this definitely shows you don't have the proper firmware to run b43.
Believe it or not that is probably a good thing. It means that the most likely path is to concentrate on finding a Windows driver for your card that ndiswrapper can live with.

Your friend is somewhat off base. The 4K stack is most definitely an issue to worry about, particularly in Fedora since this is the root of most of their problems with ndiswrapper. However, switching versions of ndiswrapper doesn't affect this problem at all since it is the stack space needed by the Windows driver that determines whether the 4K stack is a problem or not.

The good news: The most common "symptom" of a 4K stack problem is a complete system lock-up when you load the ndiswrapper module. That doesn't seem to be happening to you (at least not yet) so I don't think we have to worry about it right now.

The bad news: If it becomes a problem, you'll have to either install a new kernel that has a bigger stack (there are some 3rd party kernels for Fedora that do this, particularly the NTFS kernels) or you'll have to compile your own kernel. Or throw Fedora in the nearest dustbin and try a better distro.


So at this point, I would try a couple of different Windows drivers and see if one works.

Trying different drivers
 

Whats wild is that I downloaded that driver from the Dell website put in the model and the Xp os there were two version of drivers for the card. Intel(PROWireless) and the Broadcom. I guess I'll try the Intel one this time see if it works. I have the kind of keyboard that has the 'fn' key and it turns on like the volume and the wireless in xp there a tool or util to turn this function on for my keyboard.

Windows Drivers
 

I downloaded these drivers for the intel and extracted them to a folder on the desktop. there are two '.inf' and '.sys' files.

somewhat working
 

this would have been alot easier if I had known the mistakes I was making in the beginning. So, needless to say I am at the point I have the driver installed it see's it and doesn't throw any errors below is the output of 'ndiswrapper -i bcmwl5.inf'

What has me confused is this part below, after receiving this I looked at this message in the specified directory.

This is starting to look good!

As for the mail message, that is likely spurious, but logging in as root and checking your mail might be useful. Or not.

The big things are: 1) is ndiswrapper in the lsmod output after you've loaded it and 2) do you have a wireless card visible to iwconfig? If you do, try configuring it for your AP and see if you can connect.

lsmod output
 

according to the output from lsmod there is only b44 which if I am not mistaken that is the module for my lan port. the wiki from the ndiswrapper faq states that if there is an alternate driver to run rmmod. i ran this command

Working but can't connect to encrypted network
 

not sure what happened but it works now. I have a wireless config in my wired network. It is displaying 5 different available networks, tried connecting to my offices' wireless network with the shared key enabled and put in the network key but it wouldn't let me on. This however is a much better state then what it was before. My only question is do I have to do the 'modprobe ndiswrapper' everytime I boot my machine up and want to use my wireless card?