What I mean by "third time the charm" is that I've posted this problem on the ndiswrapper AND fedora forums and not gotten ONE answer. This'll be the third place I'm posting this. I hope you guys can help.

I have to use the 2.6.15-1.1831_FC4 kernel, because if I use any newer kernels, the driver's functions become useless.

iwlist wlan0 scan returns an error that the interface does not support scanning (when it actually does)

iwconfig wlan0 shows the correct configuration, except for the AP MAC address field, which is simply listed as "Invalid".

ifup just gives the error that I'd expect: that there's no link and I should check the link cable. This error doesn't mean much, since it occurs in my currently working kernel and wpa_supplicant and dhclient can still bring up the interface fully afterwards.

So what is it that I'm missing here? Is wireless support disabled in later kernels? Do I need to recompile wireless tools as well as ndiswrapper for new kernels?

This has been bothering me for more than a month. I'm ready to resort to violence here.

Any and all help will be GREATLY appreciated!

What card/chipset do you have? What is the pciid? Which driver are you using? What is the output of ndiswrapper -l?

The strange thing is that I found the solution for this problem... I've only found it listed in one place!

My card is a linksys WMP54GS, which has a broadcomm chipset on it. What I needed to do was install bcm43xx-fwcutter and use it to get the proper missing files from wl_apsa.o. Apparently, kernels beyond that FC4 one need those files but don't provide them.

Now, I'm up to 2.6.17-1.2174_FC5!

My new problem is a common one... why am I getting this error when attempting to install kmod-nvidia?

Error: xorg-x11-drv-nvidia conflicts with selinux-policy < 2.2.29-2.fc5

Firstly, because you have SELinux set to "enforcing"
Secondly, because the policy prohibits additions of "closed-source" code to the kernel since you have no way to verify that the code does not contain some "trojan."

If you don't care, try using the SELinux policy tools to set the security to report violations, but not prohibit them. (Um, that assumes your system does not need to be "super" secure.)

I am having a similar problem with my wireless NIC installation.

I have ndiswrapper installed, and it detects the NIC (The little light goes on) I have it set up in the configuration to obtain an IP address from the router/AP, but every time I boot up, I get a message that an IP address could not be obtained and that I should check the cable (duh...)

I'm running FC5 (2.6.15-1.2048) on a Compaq v2000 with a broadcom 4318 wireless NIC.
lspci return 05:02.0 0280: 14e4:4318 (rev 02)

ndiswrapper returns the following:
[root@ragnar ~]# ndiswrapper -l
Installed drivers:
bcmwl5 driver installed, hardware present


any thoughts on how I can get it hooked up to my access point?