Hello,
First of all - thanks for any help. I am a newbie when it comes to Linux Wifi and really want to get away from windows.

System information:
Acer Aspire 3002 WLCi
Mandriva 2005 Edition
Broadcom 4318 wifi card

I had started setting up my connection by using harddrake, it asked me to install ndiswrapper (ver. 1.1), the I loaded the windows driver for this card. When I run the iwconfig command it returns:

lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

sit0 no wireless extensions.

No wlan connections - yet in the network monitor icon by the clock, it shows a wlan0, but will not connect with it. I then tried the ndiswrapper -l command and had the following returned:

Installed ndis drivers:
bcmwl5 driver present, hardware present

I also tried the following

netstat -rn
Kernel IP routing table
Destination Gateway Genmask Flags MSS Window irtt Iface
192.168.0.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 eth0
0.0.0.0 192.168.0.1 0.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 eth0

ifconfig wlan0
wlan0: error fetching interface information: Device not found

Any suggestions on how I can get my wifi working on Linux would be appreciated.

you compiled ndiswrapper? or is it an rpm file? you might want to try
NOTE: the '#' means as root.
it may be that you need to load the module(modprobe ndiswrapper) and that will fix it

Hey there - thanks for replying

I tried the following as root

[chevy@localhost ~]$ su
Password:
[root@localhost chevy]# modprobe ndiswrapper
[root@localhost chevy]# iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

sit0 no wireless extensions.

also the patch was installed through hard drake - off the dvd disk for mandriva.

any other ideas?

sorry, didn't see this the first time. Try editing the /etc/network/interfaces file. You can essentially copy the line for eth0, and just change the name to wlan0.
mine says

This makes it so it doesn't start on boot. my eth0 entry(the one that does start on boot) says
Hope this helps

Hopes this helps:

I recently bought a Compaq Presario V2000 series (V2310, to be exact) that ships with an internal Broadcom 4318 (rev 02) wireless card.

Well, after trying A LOT of things, I finally got it working flawlessly on Mandrake 10.2 (Mandriva LE 2005) with Linuxant's DriverLoader software (which is like a commercial ndiswrapper), available at http://www.linuxant.com/driverloader/ (there is a free 30 days trial, and the software is not expensive if you ask me). But, just like ndiswrapper, you still need the Broadcom Window$ driver for it to work.

Worked fine for me, and I personally found it worth the few bucks.

Thanks for the information - I have tried this before with no luck - for some reason mandriva just does not want to start the Wlan0 connection, I have tried a lot - nothing works. I did however get it to work on Mepis. I am currently downloading Debian and going to give that a try.

If anyone has anything to try all is welcome. the driver loads - just cannot start the wlan0 connection.

I run MepisLinux 3.3.1-1 on an Acer Aspire 3003LCI laptop and it runs fine, including wireless. Had to use ndiswrapper to get the wireless working. See my notes here: http://www.mepislovers.org/modules/n...forumpost68789

Hey there

I have tried simply mepis - got the wifi working. BUT... couldn`t get my LAN (SIS 900) or could not get a decent resolution on my 15.4 screen. If you could help with those issues - mainly the display.. I would gladly go to Mepis and toss windows to the trash

I actually got my Broadcom wireless nic (BCM 94306 on and emachines m5310) working using the Mandrake control center - I had the windows driver downloaded (and unzipped) in a folder. This is what I did:

1. Opened Mandrake Control center:

2. Navigate to:
a) Hardware > Look at and configure the hardwre > Ethenretcard > BCM94306
b) click on "Run Config Tool"

****Also I think that Network and Internet > Set up a new network interface will work too****

3. Select Wireless - click next
4. Click on use a Windows Driver (with NDISwrapper)
5. Install a new driver
6 Navigate to where you have your unzipped driver file with both the bcmwl5.inf *AND* bcmwl5.sys

This last part is really important and it was where I was screwing up. The Configuration tool (and ndiswrapper command) will only ask for the location of the .inf file but it will assume that the .sys is in the same location. Also make sure you downloaded the right driver (first time I was trying to use the Broadcom LAN driver instead :/ )

7. I ran through the rest of the setup with the defaults (no hostname, just specified the zeroconf hostname - one used when sharing resources and such).

8. Enjoy!

I got this wireless card working in both Mandriva 10.1 and 10.2. In mandriva 10.1 had to do it in terminal (not too hard) in 2005 LE I used the excellent GUI tools and got it working too. Hope this helps!

hi everyone

sorry about my english...
I just got a new Presario V2000 and had a little hard time trying to get the wireless device to work under Mandriva 2006. The problem was that there was no wlan0 device (or wireless0, wifi0, eth1, etc). Using ndiswrapper, the driver showed as installed and running, but for my surprise, it wasn't. I tried all the drivers found on the web, and it seemed to work fine with ndiswrapper. But it was NOT. The only driver that I got to work was the one on my recovery DVD, packed with the laptop. When I tried that driver, the ndiswrapper successfuly loaded the driver and I could find the wlan0 device properly installed.
Then, it was just following the recipes found on this forum or everywhere.
What I think is the problem with everyone not finding the wlan0 device is that ndiswrapper loads the wrong driver and doesn't aware us of that. Try using the driver directly from the cd/dvd packed with the system and you should have no problem.
Right after ndiswrapper -i driver.inf, you will be able to see the wlan0 device easily...

Hope that helped...

Fernando, Brazil!

konfusionrave try adding the following to your grub.conf or menu.lst:
noapic acpi=noirq
add them last on the line that starts with kernel like this
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2612-wlan root=/dev/hda3 ro vga=normal acpi=noirq pci=usepirqmask noapic nolapic

could also post the output of `dmesg|tail` after you do modprobe ndiswrapper
Hope this helps

I found with Mandriva 2006, I needed the bcmwl5a.inf and bcmwl5.sys, both dated Dec 21, 2004. You do a 'ndiswrapper -i bcmwl5a.inf' to load your windows driver. You also need to do a 'ndiswrapper -m' to have modprobe.conf load the ndiswrapper connection to wlan0. I use ' ' just you show the command, don't actually enter them. You should restart the system so it will reload these drivers. I assume you know about the iwconfig and ifconfig commands to set the various settings, such as essid and mode, etc. Jay