I Have been desperately trying to get my Broadcom BCM4318 [AirForce One] 54g WLAN Card working. I finally got ndiswrapper on my Linux desktop and would be very appreciative to anyone who would help me install ndiswrapper and get my wireless card working.

Sincerely,

leopard



P.S. A big thanks to everyone at LQ for helping me resolve these issues.

You should use your package manager (I believe it is called Yum) to install ndiswrapper. This will help you with making sure you do not have a dependency problem.

You do not need to install ndiswrapper. The guide to getting that card running on Fedora 10 is at http://f7.kamisamanou.net/BCM4318F10.pdf

I have to respectfully disagree with fpmurphy. You should definitely use ndiswrapper for the bcm4318 chipset. b43/ssb (broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5) has produced the same inconsistencies ever since fc7 for me. I always give it a try first though, just in case the issue has been resolved. By now I realize it is a driver issue and not a kernel issue.

The following issues are recurrent:
1. Handshaking times out 5-10 times before a connection.
2. When there is finally a connection, the speed drops to a tepid 1 Mb/s and pretty much stays there causing really annoying streaming issues-- even on a local network.
3. Seems to see much stronger AP signals than are actually there.

You'll need a live internet connection.

To install a windows driver with ndiswrapper you'll need to get a hold of one. These (32 or 64-bit) have seemed a little hard to find in the past so I've held onto copies so I'll never have to look again. If you find one just make sure it's for the correct architecture, this is key. (if you do find an exe, you'll need to run it with wine to extract the directory with the .inf file you'll need.)


1. Open a terminal, become superuser, and use yum to install ndiswrapper:

[root@F10 user]# yum install kmod-ndiswrapper

2. Blacklist the b43 and ssb modules by editing /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist (or they'll always get in the way, I like vim but you could use gedit or whatever):

[root@F10 user]# vim /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

(scroll down to the bottom and, you'll see, add the following):

#for NDISwrapper
blacklist b43
blacklist ssb

3. use your .inf file with ndiswrapper:

[root@F10 user]# ndiswrapper -i [path to directory containing the .inf]

for example:

[root@F9 user]# ndiswrapper -i .wine/drive_c/SWSetup/SP31463A/bcmwl5.inf

(this directory must also contain the complimentary .sys file)

4. make sure ndiswrapper lists it:

[root@F10 user]# ndiswrapper -l

should output something like:

bcmwl5 : driver installed
device (14E4:4318) present (alternate driver: ssb)

5. tell modprobe you want the module inserted at boot:

[root@F10 user]# ndiswrapper -mi

Now, reboot. It should be up and running. If it's not, become superuser and see if it's listed in lsmod:

[root@F10 user]# lsmod | grep ndis

If it's not there try to modprobe it:

[root@F10 user]# modprobe ndiswrapper

Unless I'm forgetting something, or you are using a 32-bit driver with an x86_64 OS, you should be good to go.