Here's my situation. I'm on a laptop using Mandrake 10 Community and what I've now learned is the dreaded Broadcom minipci card. Reading what I've seen so far, I can get the card turned on using the ndiswrapper method.

It loads but it's not pretty.
ndiswrapper: no version for "struct_module" found: kernel tainted.
ndiswrapper version 0.5 loaded
ndiswrapper adding bcmwl5.sys

dmesg gives
wlan0: ndiswrapper ethernet device 00:90:96:7b:45:62 using driver bcmwl5.sys

The light turns on and everything should be simple from there, unfortunately it's not.

I try making it connect to my router via manually setting the essid and having it find the essid using

iwconfig wlan0 essid any

Neither is working. Wep is turned of so that sholdn't be an issue

ifup only gives
Determining IP information for wlan0... failed; no link present. Check cable?

Any help will be appreciated massively, I've tried connecting to a few different ap's and have been working on this for about a week now.

what does iwconfig show?

iwconfig wlan0 shows

wlan0 IEEE 802.11g ESSID:""
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.462GHz Access Point: FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF
Bit Rate:54Mb/s Tx-Power:16 dBm
RTS thr:2347 B Fragment thr:2346 B
Encryption key: off
Power Management: off
Link Quality:100/100 Signal level:-10 dBm Noise level:-256 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

That's the only thing besides lo that shows up and lo doesn't have any information.
It will show this in both ad-hoc and managed mode, I saw some people had luck connecting via ad-hoc so I tried it, but that didn't work for me at all. Also my box is using the 2.6 kernel.

I broke this out from my HOWTO in the wireless section, it might help you a bit, I hope. What is different though, is the name of your card, so you will have to change ath0 where it's named to wlan0.

"Bring up the interface first ``ifconfig ath0 up''.
If you want to use anything else than 802.11a, you need to specify a mode with ``iwpriv ath0 mode X''. Find out what you should replace X with by reading the manpages for iwconfig ``man iwconfig'' look for ``mode''.

Set your essid (ssid applys here too) ``iwconfig ath0 essid any''. You can replace ``any'' with your own essid but then you need to use "" around the name ``iwconfig ath0 essied "Digital"''.

If you have a wep key, set it now ``iwconfig ath0 key XXXXX''. Replace XXXXX with your WEP key.

Set the channel you want to use ``iwconfig ath0 channel 5''. Replace 5 with your channel.

If you want to specify bitrate (you do) use ``iwconfig ath0 rate 24MB''. Replace 24 with your bitrate.

Now call dhcp to get route, nameservers and ip# for you ``dhcpcd ath0''. This might take a few.

If all is fine, you can now reach your LAN and internet where that is available.

For static ip#, you do it slightly different.

Bring up the interface first ``ifconfig ath0 up 192.168.0.1''.
Change ``192.168.0.1'' to whatever IP# you want to use.

Find out what your gateways IP# is and set it
``route add default gw 192.168.0.254''. Replace ``192.168.0.254'' with your gateway's IP#.

Find out what your nameservers ip# is and add them to /etc/resolv.conf file.
``echo "nameserver 192.168.0.254" >> /etc/resolv.conf''.

Change 192.168.0.254 to your name servers ip#.

If you want to use anything else than 802.11a, you need to specify a mode with ``iwpriv ath0 mode X''. Find out what you should replace X with by reading the manpages for iwconfig ``man iwconfig'' look for ``mode''.

Set your essid (ssid applys here too) ``iwconfig ath0 essid any''. You can replace ``any'' with your own essid but then you need to use "" around the name ``iwconfig ath0 essied "Digital"''.

If you have a wep key, set it now ``iwconfig ath0 key XXXXX''. Replace XXXXX with your WEP key.

Set the channel you want to use ``iwconfig ath0 channel 5''. Replace 5 with your channel.

If you want to specify bitrate (you do) use ``iwconfig ath0 rate 24MB''. Replace 24 with your bitrate."

Good luck!

One thing you might try is this

iwconfig wlan0 essid yourap


Also be sure to set an ssid name on the AP and set broadcast to on.

then see if iwconfig shows the AP

Well I've been at it for a while, I've even gone so far as trying Linuxant. Unfortunately It's still not working, The ap has been set to broadcast, and I've even turned off mac filtering just incase this was giving me problems. None of it worked though. Might be time to try a different distro. Just incase anyone has some input here is the entire situation.
It's anyone has any more ideas here's the entire situation.
I'm using the Mandrake 10 Community distro with the 2.6 kernel, I might try updateing the kernel pretty soon though.
A Broadcom mini-PCI card on an eMachine 6805 Laptop.
Broadcom card is a 94306

I'm able to get the card up using both the ndiswrapper and Linuxant method. Atleast I think it's running because the light for it turns on and I can turn the card on and off using the hotkey.

I'm not able to gain acces to my ap at all though.

ifup fails whenever I issue it with no link present

No matter how I try and make iwconfig find my router it wont connect. I've tried changing the channels my ap is using, changing the ssid, I've tried giving iwconfig the essid of my ap and making my ap find it via wlan0 ip any.

The ap is set to broadcast and no wep enabled.

Thanks to those that have chimed in so far.

I'm thinking downgradind the kernel may get better results at this point in time.

I have access to broadband now at the motel where I'm at, so I'm considering doing that myself.

I'll give the 9.2 mandrake a chance it used the 2.4 kernel and hopefully that will give some better results. I've heard more people having success with mandrake which is why I'm trying to stick to it. I'm downloading the kernel source right now since the cd's don't come with it. *crossing fingers*