Hello everyone, I'm a linux noob. I've been fussing with my new laptop for two weeks to get on the wireless here at school/work (I work on campus), and I've finally done it. I would like to share with you, since I had to search and pick items up as I went along, a lot of stuff from this site.

After some probing, I found out that my Gateway laptop that actually has a Dell 1390 Wireless LAN card, supplied by Broadcom. I got the drivers from Dell, and extracted them. You really only need these two tho: bmcwl5.inf bmcwl564.sys

First, I went into YAST, then under the Software Management. Do a search for "ndis". Place a check in the first one (the second is a dependency, I think, so if you don't check it, YAST will install it still). Next, it asked me to put my CD in, I put the DVD I made in. Then it installed ndiswrapper and wrote to the config. I didn't need to install anything else, so when it asked me, I said no.

The next part is a little tricky... First, I looked to make sure I got the file names and directories correct with little ls love. Then we install the driver with the following command To make sure it was properly installed, we execute the command According to the ndiswrapper install instructions, you need to run the commands But I still did not have my wireless card installed all the way. So I ran a few more commands:
Just for good measure, I ran these again:Ah, now I got the wireless showing up! You might need to restart the computer after all this to get it recognized. I didn't even need to add it to the YAST network card manager.

I was unable to get the latest version of ndiswrapper to work, probably because ndiswrapper isn't in 64bit yet, and I don't know how to recompile a program in 64 yet.

Then I was online, I didn't have any configuring to do, but the network config tool that comes with SuSe let me configure my home network which uses encryption.

I started out with Slackware 11, but couldn't keep it due to issues with my school's VPN settings, but in case you need it, I borrowed this from a tutorial I read for Slack wireless:Sorry if I'm all scatterbrained or unable to provide customized suggestions if you have a question, I'm still new. But let's keep it open for discussion, we're all here to help.

Yes ndiswrapper is 64-bit ready, I use it on my 64-bit laptop with the 64-bit OS (RHEL5Beta2). After all is is not hard to do;

make distclean
make
make install

All you need is the kernel source* or the kernel development packages installed.

$ ndiswrapper -l
bcmwl5 : driver installed
device (14E4:4318) present

$ ndiswrapper -v
utils version: 1.9
driver version: 1.32
vermagic: 2.6.20-rc2 mod_unload

$ uname -a
Linux Aspire5000 2.6.20-rc2 #0 Fri Dec 29 13:11:02 EST 2006 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

* one needs to edit the kernel source ~/kernel/module.c file and remove two lines in order to use ndiswrapper with kernels 2.6.19 or better;

if (strcmp(mod->name, "ndiswrapper") == 0)
add_taint_module(mod, TAINT_PROPRIETARY_MODULE);

.

This worked for me. THANK YOU! I've been fussing with this for about 4 days now, on and off. My laptop is a HP Pavillion dv6113us running 10.2 using the version of ndiswrapper that YAST installs.

Glad to help, your welcome.

Originally, I got the latest version of Ndiswrapper installed and even had a tutorial laid out for it, but when I went to search for my WAPs, the computer would lock up. I might try what you said about removing the two lines to see if that will get it to work.


*off topic for a sec*
I just realized you're from Indy, Lenard... I work and go to school at IUPUI

Really I'm in Columbus, Indiana

You should not have to remove the two lines unless needed, they stop the ndiswrapper module from being built and loaded nothing more.

I have been jumping from forum to forum and have not had any luck getting my wireless card to work. I just recently upgraded from 10.1. I worked really hard to get my wireless card working on 10.1, but I finally figured that out as well.

There is a trick to getting your Dell 1390 wireless card working. Just for your information, I recently purchased a Dell inspiron e1505, and that is the wireless card that came stock with the laptop.

Let me first start off saying that most of the forums have the correct instructions, but they are telling you to use the wrong drivers. I will now proceed to give you a list of all the instructions.

1.from the Suse 10.2 install disc, or from the internet, install ndiswrapper.

2. (the big secret of my tutorial that is different from all the others) Then you need to install the drivers. The trick to this is that you need the microsoft 2000 drivers for this, because for this tutorial the microsoft xp drivers do not work. They can be found here:

http://support.dell.com/support/down...&fileid=152055

3. unpack the drivers into a folder that you can explore through.

4. look into the driver folder, and copy the bcmwl5.inf file to your desired location.

5. now run this code in your terminal
ndiswrapper -i /home/(username)/bcmwl5.inf
(the location may not be the same as the above mentioned location)

6. now run this code in your terminal
ndiswrapper -l
this will give you a result of something like "driver installed, hardware present." Note: it sometimes says something different depending on the version of ndiswrapper you have.

7. if you are good up to this point, then type this in your terminal:
ndiswrapper -m
this says something about an alias something or other

8. if that worked successfully, then type this in the terminal:
modprobe ndiswrapper

9. now open up yast, and on the left click on system, from there click on network devices, and then on network card

10. use knetworkmanager, then select add on the next screen. now on the device type dropdown select wireless, and in the module name write in there ndiswrapper
then click next then next again, then finish

almost done.....

11. now in yast, select system on the left side, then /etc/sysconfig Editor

then expand the systen choice, then expand the kernel choice, and select MODULES_LOADED_ON_BOOT

once you click on that, just type ndiswrapper on that blank line, then click finish.....

you should now be finished, and able to have wireless all the time, even after rebooting.....

you really could have made it simplier
all i did was
install ndiswrapper from yast
its technically done BUT
in your thingy you are missing a step - to make wireless start on boot
you need to boot yast and go to network devices>network card (with knetworkmanager)
and then add
device type wireless (duh)
configuration name wlan0
leave everything the same
then add ndiswrapper to module name
next next blah blah look over it if you need necessary changes like WPA
you are really done after that

I know that i could have made it simpler, and you are right....I wanted to make it in depth and step-by-step enough, that even the newest of linux users could follow. Did you find my post helpful?

By the way, you said

"its technically done BUT
in your thingy you are missing a step - to make wireless start on boot
you need to boot yast and go to network devices>network card (with knetworkmanager)
and then add
device type wireless (duh)
configuration name wlan0
leave everything the same
then add ndiswrapper to module name
next next blah blah look over it if you need necessary changes like WPA
you are really done after that"

I did not skip a step, the only thing different you did than me was added the configuration name wlan0.....I did not do that, and to be honest, I don't really know what that does. If you would explain it to me, that would be great.

thanks

it makes the wireless card boot up when the computer is restarted
if not you will have to do the modprobe ndiswrapper and then iwconfig everytime.
and yes i found the guide useful, it will especially useful for noobs

i did not do that, and my wireless card boots up everytime without fail......There may be more to it than I think, so if you are somebody who is reading this forum for installation purposes, i would add the "wlan0" step to adding the wireless card that the previous poster had suggested.....

Thanks for your feedback.

oh really?
it starts up by itself?
thats interesting. i wonder how

K well looks like im unsuccessful even after this 1. I have ndiswrapper installed
i feed it the bcmwl5.inf driver it installs it. i check on it nd it says its installed. i followed every single command you guys listed. Nothing happenned. all i have is wired connection. And if i add my wireless through the netword card manager it says its not connected. it seems to me ive followed the steps perfectly. I have a DV2000 with an AMD Turion64 X2

Nick, are you running in SuSe x64 or 32 edition?

When you run ifconfig, does it find the wireless adapter?