Belkin wireless card
 

I have just build my 1st Linux rig and am using Mandrake 10.0 communiy.

This is a lot of fun, but I am a bit of a newbie. I have got the basic concepts, can get in and out of root, switch directories etc with the command prompt.

Anyway - I want to get the machine on the net - I have a Belkin (Broadcom) wireless PCI card, which Linux see's happily but does not have drivers for. I have scoured google but can only find cryptic references to PCMCIA cards or to Prism 54 chipsets (which I don't think it has). Details are:

Vendor - Broadcom

Decription - BCM94306 802.11g NIC


Can anyone tell me

1) Are there drivers I can use?
2) How can I configure it afterwards
3) Talk me through the installation

I am quite sure if I can get this rig on the net, get my OpenGL drivers for my GF4 installed and get UT2003 up and running, I'll be hooked on Linux forever!!

Thanks for your help.

Mark
:Pengy:

Kernel 2.6.5
 

Well, Prism54.org says that there has been sucsess with this card

Prism54.org

using thier driver, which is included in the 2.6.5 kernel, under:

Device Drivers---->
Networking support---->
Wireless LAN---->
Intersil Prism GT/Duette/Indigo PCI/Cardbus

(To recompile your kernel, download the 2.6.5 source from www.kernel.org, put it in /usr/src as /usr/src/linux-2.6.5, type 'ln -s /usr/src/linux-2.6.5 /usr/src/linux'. Then cd into /usr/src/linux, type 'make xconfig' or 'make menuconfig'if you're on the command line, reconfigure, and then type make bzImage, then make modules, then make modues_install. New kernel is in /usr/src/linux/arch/i386/boot/bzImage, assuming you're on an x86 machine. Replace your current kernel with it. It's probably /boot/vmlinuz or /vmlinuz. Keep a backup as vmlinuz.old. type 'lilo' if you're using lilo and not grub or other, and you're good to go.)

Also, make sure you have the other kernel things it needs, like /sys and the firmware.

Other Kernel Requirements

Once you are past this point, make sure you have the 'iwconfig' command, and got the firmware from here

Read thier readme to finish up. If this doesn't work, you can always get ndiswrapper and use your windows drivers :eek:

This card uses a Broadcom chip, not a Prism54 chip.
You'll have to use the ndiswrapper to get it working. See this HCL entry for more info.
Hopefully one day Broadcom will come to their senses and release a module for this chip, or at least enough info for the open source community to develop a module.