I am not really sure what my problem is. I finally got a hold of the bcmwl5.inf and bcmwl5.sys files, but am not sure what to do. So far I have been following a guide i found at <http://archivemylife.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!A65130FDDC997385!219.entry>, but am not having a lot of success. I have gotten stuck at various points in teh guide, especially at the end where he uses this command:
sudo gedit /etc/network/interfaces
I've pasted the guide below. If anyone has any suggestions let me know! I may be going about this totally wrong, I am just trying to get my wireless up and running on my inspiron 1150 with ubuntu. thanks!
You should use Ndiswrapper to drive the Dell 1390 wireless adapter.
1. install ndiswrapper
sudo apt-get install ndiswrapper-common
sudo apt-get install ndiswrapper-utils-1.8
sudo apt-get install ndisgtk
2. download dell driver:
http://ftp.us.dell.com/network/R115321.EXE
3. extract the R115321.EXE using unzip and get the bcmwl5.inf and bcmwl5.sys
4. add the free wireless driver to black list
echo 'blacklist bcm43xx' | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
5. attach the driver
sudo ndiswrapper -i bcmwl5.inf
6. list the driver
sudo ndiswrapper -l
7. install the WPA support
sudo apt-get install wpasupplicant
8. install the network-manager
sudo apt-get install network-manager
sudo apt-get install network-manager-gnome
9. update config
sudo gedit /etc/network/interfaces
Comment out everything other than “lo” entries in that file and save the file
Create a file called /etc/default/wpasupplicant, add entry ENABLED=0 and save the file
sudo touch /etc/default/wpasupplicant
Reboot your system