I am trying to load a fresh copy of Ubuntu 8.4. It does not recognise my D-link DWL G510 so it does not install ndiswrapper. Where do I start to get this working?

WifiDocs/DWL-G510

And see if that takes care of the issue.

OK, but how do I get ndiswrapper installed if I can't access the Internet with that machine?

Is on your installation CD...

As for the driver, if you don't have the driver CD which would have the driver you need, then you would have to get onto another computer that DOES have internet, and download it that way.

I followed the suggestion provided by LG
installed ndiswrapper from the CD
copied the drivers to a new folder "dlink drivers" in my directory
cd'ed to the new folder
ran ndiswrapper -i mrv8k.inf
ran ndiswrapper -l (the new driver was there)
sudo ndiswrapper -m
sudo modprobe ndiswrapper
gedit /etc/modules (added ndiswrapper after the last entry ans saved the file)

The network started to work and I could connect to the internet.

I then restarted.

Since this post I reinstalled Ubuntu and did the above procedure. This time I got the orange screen with the following message in the box in the upper left corner

"There was an error starting the GNOME settings daemon.
Some things such as sounds, or background settings may not work correctly.
The last error message was: Did not receive a reply. possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply time out expired, or the network connection was broken.
GNOME will try to restart the settings daemon next time you log in.

At this point the screen is frozen and all I can do is turn it off.

I'm baffled as to why you would reinstall once you got it working...

Anyhow, are you sure you haven't missed a step you performed last install?

Like including Universe/Multiverse repositories? Something along those lines?

The only fix I can think of off the top of my head for the lockup is to attempt a CTRL+ALT+Fn, login and just do a quick simple ps aux and see what's running and what might be locking up the system.

If you can get to one of the Fn terminals, then you should also be able to restart X without having to reboot, and perhaps repair whatever is going on inside there.

Sorry I'm not more help, but I've never run into a locked desktop like that before. :/

Cheers,
Ghost

First I believe that you assume that I know more than I really do... I don't!!!

I have reloaded several times and I was very careful to do all steps.

The network began working after I used ndiswrapper to install the driver. The last step was to restart. Eventually I would need to shutdown anyway and would have ended up at the same frozen screen.

I have no idea what Universe/Multiverse repositories are. I didn't know about "CTRL+ALT+Fn", I'm a newby. I don't know what you mean "login and just do a quick simple ps aux and see what's running".

I have once again RELOADED (without restarting) The network works fine except printer sharing. I have updated all the programs. Everything seems OK but I'm afraid that when I shutdown it will freez again when I restart.

are there things I could check before I shutdown. I do remember that it wasn't happy about the ndiswrapper -m. Is this a problem?

OK LD, you led me down this path. Are you going to desert me now?

Dumb question, but everytime I've done ndiswrapper, I've had to blacklist a driver that was existing. Have you done this?

I don't think that would make Ubuntu lock up, though, prob only make the wireless broken.

I couldn't find another driver listed for my card