Hello all,

I have an HP Compaq nx9600 laptop with an integrated NIC, from lspci:

Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4318 [AirForce One 54g] 802.11g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 02)

I am running Slackware Current (as of May 8th) with the vanilla 2.4.32 kernel. I've installed ndiswrapper-1.16 and the bcmwl5.inf driver for Windows XP. At the command line I get:

bash-3.1# ndiswrapper -l
Installed drivers:
bcmwl5 driver installed, hardware present
bash-3.1# iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

wlan0 IEEE 802.11g ESSIDff/any Nickname:"Sonar"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.462 GHz Access Point: Not-Associated
Bit Rate=54 Mb/s Tx-Power:25 dBm
RTS thr=2347 B Fragment thr=2346 B
Encryption keyff
Power Managementff
Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0
bash-3.1# ifconfig
::IRELEVANT STUFF WAS HERE::

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:14:A5:6E5:1A
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
Interrupt:5 Memory:c8206000-c8208000

bash-3.1# iwlist wlan0 scan
wlan0 No scan results

The big problem is, I'm not sure if the card is active or not. The laptop has a button for enabling/disabling the wireless card, and I am sure it is software driven (though I don't know how to test to ensure). I have followed the following sources as much as I could:

http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/m...p/Installation
http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/m.../index.php/FAQ
http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/m...index.php/Tips
http://rfswitch.sourceforge.net/
and I have exausted my patcients for searching the forum archives.

So, I cannot detect any of the 9 access points around me. I cannot connect to my own wireless network. I have tried a variety of commands as I attempt to progress, but I am, of course, willing to entertain any helpful suggestions. My goal is, of course, to get this up and running, and determine if the card is controlled by a software switch (I have a feeling it is) so I can report it to the rfswitch dev team.

I think that since both iwconfig and ifconfig clearly see it, it is likely to be active, but it certainly hasn't been configured or requested an IP address. Once you have the driver installed, you need to configure for a network using iwconfig. If the network is unencrypted you can just set the ssid with the command

iwconfig wlan0 essid TheAPSSID

Then request and IP address: dhcpcd wlan0

If you use encryption, then you can use iwconfig to set a WEP key, but you need to install wpa_supplicant to use a WPA key.