Surely the graphical front-end ndisgtk won't be of help, because all it does is use the very same ndiswrapper program you did from the command line, except that now you can click and the program issues the commands. I assume you either used ndiswrapper as root or trough sudo, because it probably won't work otherwise?
I imagine the process is something like this, compare this to what you did and if it differs, try this if you want to (replace the
drivername with the driver filename you use):
1) Make sure no old (native) driver exists:
if one of the modules listed after that is a module that is meant for your card (check Google for this), note it's name and use
Code:
sudo rmmod modulename
to remove it from the running kernel.
2) Remove ndiswrapper module from the kernel (I had to reinstall ndiswrapper-1.8 -- if the version is newer, change it accordingly or leave the version number off) and pull ndiswrapper using APT (needs an internet connection; if you just did this, you may jump forward)
Code:
sudo rmmod ndiswrapper
sudo apt-get --assume-yes install ndiswrapper-utils ndiswrapper-common ndiswrapper-utils-1.8
Not sure if 1.8 is available for Dapper, though; I was using Edgy.
3) If you feel you still might have some older wireless drivers loaded to your kernel, use 'lsmod' and 'rmmod modulename' to remove them, like earlier; there should be no conflicting drivers after now
4) Now try to install the driver .inf file; replace
drivername here with the .inf driver filename you use:
Code:
sudo ndiswrapper -i drivername.inf
Now make sure ndiswrapper module is loaded to the kernel after this:
Code:
sudo modprobe ndiswrapper
5) Let's blacklist the old drivers, if any; this prevents them being loaded, and we can use the newly installed driver instead: if you proceed with this step, you'll need the driver names you removed from the kernel (if you removed) using 'rmmod modulename'
Code:
sudo echo "modulename" >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
Do this for every module you rmmod'ed from the kernel before installing the new driver; note that you DO need to use two arrows (">>") to APPEND the information to the file; if you only type one, the file gets overwritten. If you didn't have any previous drivers conflicting, you may omit this step.
6) Make ndiswrapper load at startup:
Code:
sudo echo "ndiswrapper" >> /etc/modules
Note that I haven't done too much with ndiswrapper, this is merely a rough skeleton I think I followed (can't remember 100% surely if I missed something) when I last time had to install Windows drivers for a tricky wireless card on a Linux laptop. After those you should make sure your wireless is enabled (i.e. some laptops have a button you need to click to enable the wireless card, and a light that tells you it is enabled) and see what
Code:
iwconfig
iwlist scan
give you; the device you're using is usually either
eth1 or
wlan0 depending on your configuration; it doesn't matter which one (unlike some people say), the point is you need to know which one it is. For example, if ndiswrapper works,
(or replace eth1 --> wlan0) should give you some information about nearby access points etc..
It could be that if Dapper doesn't offer you the newest ndiswrapper, that could be the problem. I've heard older ndiswrapper versions (pre 1.8) have problems with some drivers/cards, so it's always worth a try if you can't figure anything else out; I also recommend updating to Edgy when the support for Dapper begins to end, but that's not yet I guess
I hope you get your wireless working. Oh, and one more thing: I strongly recommend you make sure the .inf file you are using is really for your chip exactly. I know you said it's said in some site, but even if it was Roosevelt who told it to you, please search the web for other howtos, faqs and websites that either tell you to use the same driver or tell you to use some other driver. Note that the drivers can be different for x86 (32-bit) and x86_64 (64-bit) systems. It's sad when people have to resort to using ndiswrapper + Windows drivers; it was a whole lot easier if the native drivers would work, and that would be a lot easier if the manufacturers started writing other drivers than Windows-only too -- or maybe platform-independent ones. That's probably just too much asked.
