Broadcom, ndiswrapper issues.
 

I have an HP laptop with a Broadcom wireless card. I installed Mandriva 2006 Linux on the unit. Everything configured swimmingly except the 54G card (well, that and IRDA, but I digress).

After much agonizing, my plan was simple -- use the BCMWL5A.INF/.SYS files with ndiswrapper to get the card up and running.

I ran ndiswrapper -I on the .INF file -- it created everything like it should.

I ran ndiswrapper -m to create the alias in modprobe.conf.

STILL it does not work.

Ndiswrapper -l yields:

Installed ndis drivers:
bcmwl5a driver present, hardware present

Iwconfig tells me:

lo no wireless extensions.
eth0 no wireless extensions.
eth1 no wireless extensions.
sit0 no wireless extensions.

Trying to use the Mandriva Control Center: There's an icon for "Wireless connection", which would seem the logical place to go, but when I select it I get, "You do not have any wireless interface. Run the "Set up a new network interface..." assistant from the control center." When I run THAT, it's the standard new connection set up. I select Wireless Connection, then it asks for the net device and offers "Manually load a driver" or "Use a Windows driver (with ndiswrapper)". I pick the latter and I have 2 options

-- "Install a new driver" or "Use the ndiswrapper driver bcmwl5a". I pick the latter, hit next, and get the error, "Unable to find the ndiswrapper interface!".

Then I did a modprobe ndiswrapper and I get back, "FATAL: Module ndiswrapper not found".

Earlier, I went in at the command line and tried to configure it as well. I've created the script to start it and added it to rc.local; I created the config, ifcfg-wlan0, in etc/sysconfig/network-scripts. And yes, I ran ndiswrapper -l / -m from the config line, modprobe, and iwconfig as well. In every case, I keep coming back to the same issue -- ndiswrapper is not being found. Throughout all trials, the lighted button (HP laptops have a button for wireless) never lit up. (Yes, I tried pushing the button at one point as well. LOL)

Using the GUI, I removed the ndiswrapper package and reinstalled it -- no change, still get the same results.

I went in this afternoon and completely removed it all -- the config files, entries in modprobe.conf and rc.local, the works. I'm ready to try it all yet again from the beginning. I'm hoping SOMEONE might have some insight into what's going on here -- I'm pretty sure we have an issue with ndiswrapper since every time I've tried getting this configured the issues come back to ndiswrapper not being bound.

Thoughts?

Go to the ndiswrapper home page and follow their instructions. I have used them numerous times and never had a problem.

That's the direction I'm heading. I'd like to figure out why it isn't working "out of the box". It's not like there's much user interaction in the setup of Mandriva -- the installer pretty much does it all. It's hard to believe that this one particular installation flubbed up somewhere and did not install this one module correctly.

Irritating.

Thanks.

I hit ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net and grabbed v1.6. Uninstalled 1.2.3 from my installation, installed the kernel sources (Mandriva does not install them initially, go figure), then installed ndiswrapper 1.6. I configured the driver and restarted the system -- still didn't work. I ran modprobe ndiswrapper and the magic light came on. :)

One problem remains -- although the card is configured and is pulling an IP, it is not able to ping anything -- all attempts come back destination host unreachable (except for ping itself). I'm not sure what might be causing that.