I've been trying to get wireless working on my laptop using linux. I had it working under Fedora core3, and under Knoppix, but recently installed Mepis 3.3 which I really like, but I just can't seem to get the wireless going. This is an HP zv5000 with an internal Broadcom 54G card. I've been following the directions off the ndiswrapper website, ndiswrapper is installed on mepis by default. After installing the driver (ndiswrapper -i), ndiswrapper -l gets me:

The bcmwl5a is the driver I'm trying to use, it's the same one I used unider FC3 and Knoppix. The lsbcmnds entry seems odd, with it saying hardware is present.

It doesn't appear to be loading the ndiswrapper module, after modprobe ndiswrapper, dmesg doesn't mention anything about ndiswrapper. There also is no wlan0 that I can find.

I'm still relatively new at linux, I have no idea where to go from here.

ndiswrapper should show up in dmesg as soon as you run the modprobe command...

What happens when you type
$ ifconfig wlan0 up

Sorry it took so long for me to get back, been real busy at work.

This worked for me on the same laptop.

Remove ndiswrapper that is installed via SuSE install. (I'm running 9.2) Then compile from source. I didn't get the errors listed here and didn't have to hack the source though.

http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/p...8594fc4cea1bfc

You will need to remove your 32 bit W2K drivers (remove the files and remove from config using ndiswrapper -e filename). The directions also have a link to the 64bit drivers.

Hope this helped and good luck.

Do you see any error messages in the output of dmesg?

I am running MEPIS on an HP zv5220us with the same Broadcom chip. You will have to remove the old drivers. MEPIS includes ndiswrapper and wireless tools. You already know how to make the new driver. Next modprobe ndiswrapper. Now iwconfig wlan0 for your settings with the final statement, iwconfig wlan0 commit.
This will save your wireless configurations. I still have to change to root, modprobe ndiswrapper, and ifup wlan0 each time I boot. Does anyone have help with that?

I've got this kind of working now. I uninstalled the lsbcmds driver and it will now connect to my neighbors network on boot... sometimes. Haven't had any luck getting it to connect to my router.
Here's the cut and paste from my post on the mepislovers.org forums:

(Start post)
I've been having problems getting my wireless card working correctly on my laptop. This is an HP zv5000 laptop with a built in broadcom bcm4306 b/g wireless card. I am dual booting with mepis 3.3 and winxp home. Everything works fine under windows. I installed the windows binary drivers using ndiswrapper and had everything working, but could only connect to my neighbors ap. They have a b router, unsecured. I'm using a linksys wrt54g router with wpa pre shared key with AES (also tried it with TKIP, and WEP) and when I input my router config in the mepis control center/wireless tab, then do a ifup wlan0 I get a:
Error for wireless request "Set Encode" (8B2A) :
invalid argument "********"
(my shared key)

also, for some reason I was having problems connecting at all, even to my neighbors ap. I was getting a:
wlan0: no IPv6 routers present

I went into /etc/modutils/aliases and uncommented the
# alias net-pf-10 off # IPv6
line.
Now I can connect, again only to neighbors ap, but I'm still getting the no IPv6 routers present error, and on the os control center/status tab it shows wlan0 being down, but I am connected.
Sorry for the long winded post, if I have left any relevant information out, let me know.
(End post)

Here's my latest dmesg output:

root@1[sford]# dmesg | tail
parport0: PC-style at 0x378 (0x778) [PCSPP(,...)]
parport0: irq 7 detected
lp0: using parport0 (polling).
lp0: console ready
ttyS0: LSR safety check engaged!
ttyS1: LSR safety check engaged!
wlan0: no IPv6 routers present
ABORTED IN=wlan0 OUT= MAC=00:90:4b:b7:26:bd:00:0f:66:d1:d6:39:08:00 SRC=63.210.62.163 DST=192.168.1.112 LEN=40 TOS=0x00 PREC=0x00 TTL=51 ID=16195 DF PROTO=TCP SPT=80 DPT=1187 SEQ=3088270876 ACK=0 WINDOW=0 RES=0x00 RST URGP=0
ABORTED IN=wlan0 OUT= MAC=00:90:4b:b7:26:bd:00:0f:66:d1:d6:39:08:00 SRC=64.233.187.104 DST=192.168.1.112 LEN=40 TOS=0x00 PREC=0x00 TTL=240 ID=21616 PROTO=TCP SPT=80 DPT=1219 SEQ=751046271 ACK=3677443097 WINDOW=9300 RES=0x00 RST URGP=0
ABORTED IN=wlan0 OUT= MAC=00:90:4b:b7:26:bd:00:0f:66:d1:d6:39:08:00 SRC=64.233.187.104 DST=192.168.1.112 LEN=40 TOS=0x00 PREC=0x00 TTL=240 ID=28528 PROTO=TCP SPT=80 DPT=1218 SEQ=2133177124 ACK=3669357773 WINDOW=9300 RES=0x00 RST URGP=0


I am currently connected to my neighbors ap. (They don't mind, but I'd like to get on mine)
I'm kind of getting off course here, but how do you unload modules? I'm specifically referring to the ipv6 module, it's still listed in lsmod. I tried:

Would it do any good to remove this module?