im a linux newbe, i tried to use th ndiswrapper to install a driver for my bcm4603 802.11 b/g wireless, onboard a pavilion laptop. i cant figure out how to get the ndiswrapper to work on the command prompt, i think i have it installed(pretty sure) but for the life of me cant figure it out, i have over 20 hours into this and am about to give up and go back to windows. can anyone help? or could i go to fedora i read they have wireless drivrers on there new fedora 8. thanks signed -sick of screwing with linux

A: if you feel more comfortable with windows, then definitely go back.

B: try using google for a solution for your problem.

To install the drivers, download the windows drivers, cd to the dir and type:
/usr/sbin/ndiswrapper -i bcmwl5.inf (or whatever it is)

and you should get some response. type the above but with -l instead of -i and it should list drivers and hardware present.

Again, if you do not have patience or the willingness to search out answers, perhaps you should go back to windows.

Dont get me wrong i dont like windows and ill boycott it forever, i like linux suse 10.3 so far and love the fact that people are out there creating it free of charge to the public. but i have have to reboot to windows to get inernet. i for the life of me cant get my wireless to work. i have papers of walk throughs, and through trial and errors i got a few things going but the walkthroughs are off. i have ndiswrapper installed, i have a bcm4306 wireless in a zv5200 hp pavilion laptop amd64 athelon processor.i cant figure it out. id like some help if someone would. thanx -Carson

You need to give us a better idea of what problems you are having. Just saying "it doesn't work" isn't going to help us.

Post the output from "lsmod" and "ifconfig" for starters, so we can see if the ndiswrapper module is present and if your wireless card has been recognized.

Assume you have installed the latest Windows drivers per the ndiswrapper instructions.

when i type in ndiswrapper -l, i get that the driver i have is installed.
ifconfig is as follows.

ifconfig
link encap:ehernet hwadder 00:0F:B0:4B:EB
up broadcast multicast mtu:1500 metric:1
rx packets:0 errors:0 dropperd:0 overruns:0 frame:0
tx packets:0 errors:0 dropperd:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelin:1000
rx bytes:0 (0:0b) tx byes:0 (0:0b)
interupt:18 base adderess:0x800

link encap:local loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 scope:host
up loopback running mtu:16436 metric:1
rx packets:32 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
tx packets:32 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0:
collisions:0 taqueuelen:0
rx bytes:2056 (2.0 kb) tx bytes:2056 (2.0 kb)


and when i typed in ismod i got the following
ismod:
-bash: ismod: command not found


im lost i looks like i had it but i didnt,thanks for your time though i really do appreciate it...-Carson

lsmod, not ismod

The system doesn't know about your wireless card - there are no wireless interfaces. lsmod will tell you if the ndiswrapper module is installed. You could also do "modprobe ndiswrapper" and see what happens.

First, broadcom is notoriously awkward to install on any linux!
I suggest you try another linux distro to get some feel for what you are doing. I went through pretty much the same frustration and bewilderment as you trying to get broadcom to work - lots of help most of which was above my very basic level of linux competence.

So, I suggest you try out Puppy Linux. It has a network wizard which may or may not get you going using the broadcom firmware configuration. It didn't work for me, but it also has a gui ndiswrapper routine which got the wifi working. I use WPA on the router and had to do some terminal commands to get that working. You have to blacklist the bcm43xx firmware if you go the ndiswrapper route.

If you join the Puppy Linux forums look for posts by Tempestuous - he has a very clear HOWTO wifi which should get you up and running.

Puppy Linux is good - small only 95MB and you can easily install to hard disk alongside windows, or on a USB stick. If you mess up then a reinstall is no great problem.

Oops! Forgot to say you should get Puppy Linux 3.01 which is the latest version. The Download Linux section on this board gives an older version for Puppy.

Also, the Puppy linux forum (http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/index.php) is down at the moment! Depends on how patient or frustrated you are!

You can get Puppy 3 here:

http://www.puppylinux.org/

.... from small acorns, great oaks grow. Give it a try!

You might consider the bcm43xx driver instead. Install the bcm43xx-fwcutter package and then run as root "install_bcm43xx_firmware". ( I had performed part of the manual bcm43xx-fwcutter procedure and then found the install script by accident. If you have a wired connection it will even download the firmware you need ) The NIC device went out on my HP laptop, and like they say, necessity is the mother of invention, although in this case it was the mother of inspiration.

Broadcom drivers suck =D ok now that I got that out of the way. I had lots of problems also with that and the easiest distro to run to get wirless up and running so far has been Ubuntu 7.10 I had wireless 5 min after install by downloading the bcm43xx-fwcutter_20060108-6build1_i386.deb package and wl_apsta.o prior to install so all I had to do was install that package and point it to wl_apsta.o I'm in no way a pro with linux more a noob with some background. Give that a try if you want. Let me know if it works for you. Ubuntu 7.10 is all GUI and IMO the best I have tried so far.
Wish ya luck,
Scott

Laph: there's noobs, noobies, and others who are completely new to linux. I fall into the latter category - refugee from windows ... one of the problems for us is that very quickly we fall into a quagmire of well-intentioned advice which just demands too much background knowledge. Some of the recent distros are very deceptive for a windows user who expects everything to work at the gui level and who quickly get lost when the distro starts asking to install such and such a library or whatever. GUI appearances can be very deceptive!

One problem with the bcm43xx firmware is that it seems to be limited to 11 Mbit and I've heard that the wifi range is problematical. I tried to get wifi broadcom working with Ubuntu but was stymied by the need to be online to get the programs. With Puppy Linux, even 'tho it didn't work 100% with the network wizard, the easy ndiswrapper configuration got me half the way there - as I mentioned previously the WPA security failed miserably, and I had to resort to the CLI method to complete the configuration.

The other big advantage of Puppy is that it easily installs on a variety of media, even alongside windows, and it's lightening fast because it runs in ram - saving changes is near enough automatic and transparent. It's a graet distro for real beginners, especially those who are fleeing from windows. I'm not sure, but I think it's based on ubuntu, and 301 is slackware based.

I think the linux forums should have a section for absolute beginners - maybe NONNIES? They could then progress to NOOBIES when they've actually got a distro working! God knows how many people give up at the live CD stage!

yours

just another Nonnie

I just checked my current rate with iwconfig. It's 24 Mb/s.

If you want to use the ndiswrapper driver, then you will need to blacklist the bcm43xx driver. You can't have both drivers loaded at the same time.
Add the line "blacklist bcm43xx" to the /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist file.

Did you run the "YaST2 -> network -> network devices" configuration? You may need to enter "ndiswrapper" as the driver. Select the device and select "Edit".

You may have misread a previous reply. It is "lsmod" not "ismod". The first letter is a small "el" not a capital I. "sudo /sbin/lsmod" will list the kernel modules loaded. Ndiswrapper has two parts. The first is the command itself. The second is a kernel module. Since "ndiswrapper -l" listed your driver, check if the module is loaded. Next,
a handy way to test if the wireless device is working is with the wireless-tools' program "iwlist".

For example: "sudo /usr/sbin/iwlist wlan0 scan". This should list the APs detected.

Since SuSE 10.2, it seems to be difficult getting ndiswrapper working. At least for the bcmwl564.sys 64 bit driver. Once I found that I needed to compile ndiswrapper from source using an earlier version ( When I used SuSE 10.0 if I remember correctely ) and found it convenient to copy the source to /usr/src/packages/SOURCE/ and extract the .spec file to /usr/src/packages/SPECS/ and then use "rpmbuild -bb ndiswrapper.spec" to rebuild the two ndiswrapper rpm files. The one for the kernel is the one I would install to get ndiswrapper working again.

Do you think we are talking to ourselves here, guys? No feedback from crsn as yet.

Sorry, ive been out of town at a tat2 convention, i didnt know about the blacklisting of the driver, ill try that and see where it gets me. i appreciate all the help you are giving. you guys are awesome thanx a lot. -Carson

i downloded ubuntu twice, it wouldnt install on my computer.