Hi I'm trying to get my wireless up and running I use a dell inspiron 1150 with a broadcom internal card. I got ndiswrapper for the driver per some helpful instructions on how to get it to work but I get this error early on into the dragging the ndiswrapper folder to /usr/src, untarring it the next command is cd /usr/src/ndiswrapper-1.0 (not sure if that is the correct file name however I am sure I typed it right at the time), that works of course and then the command is

make install

I then get this error message:

make -c /lib/modules/2.6.3-7 mdk/build
subdirs=/usr/src/ndiswrapper-0.1/driver modules
make xxx /lib/modules/2.6.3-7mdk/ build: no such file or directory stop:
make xxx [default] error 2

I am new to linux and have no idea what the problem is here, can someone please help me out with it!

do you have a directory
/usr/src/linux-2.6.3-7mdk

If you don't, you have to install the kernel source first. It's probably on the installation disks. If not, you can download it. The name of the rpm should be
kernel-source-2.6.3-7mdk.i586.rpm

Once installed, make sure there is a link called build in
/lib/modules/2.6.3-7mdk

If it doesn't exist, you can create it with

cd /lib/modules/2.6.3-7mdk
ln -s /usr/src/linux-2.6.3-7mdk build

Then try compilind ndiswrapper again.
Hope this works.

thanks that was the problem and I've progressed further into the process but now have another problem. I thought everthign went fine and after running the loaddriver command everythign appearred to go okay but while the ifconfig command works fine the iwconfig command does not work at all, can anyone help me out? Thanks

you have to be root to use iwconfig.
What happens when you try to use iwconfig? You need to give more details.

sorry for lack of info, I am root when doing this and there error is:

bash: iwconfig: file not found

however I am as sure as I can be that all the other steps in the readme for ndisdriver were followed and I did not see any error messages. This stuff is pretty basic I know but I am brand new to linux and know nothing about it, thanks for helping

do you have the wireless tools installed? You can check in the software management tool in mandrake. Go to remove software and search for wireless. If wireless-tools doesn't appear, you have to install it.

If the tools are installed, try using
/usr/sbin/iwconfig
or
/sbin/iwconfig
instead of just iwconfig.

okay thanks, if it is not installed how do I install it, is it on a install cd, is there anyway I can search for the file(s), what are they called.

wireless tools should be on the installation CDs. You can use Mandrake's software management tool (rpmdrake) and use its search function. Look for 'wireless' and it will list packages that contain that prase in their names. If wireless tools isn't installed, it'll show up in the list.

When I get to the command: "utils/loaddriver 14e4 4320 /home/downloads/BCMWL5.SYS /home/downloads/bcmwl5/inf" I get the error message:

[root@localhost ndiswrapper]# utils/loaddriver 14e4 4320 /home/downloads/BCMWL5.SYS /home/downloads/bcmwl5.inf

calling putdriver ioctl
unable to put driver (check dmesg for more info): Invalid argument

I think I may already have gotten past this step in a previous attempt but cannot remember since I have been over it so many times. Also, I am sure that I am typing the file names correctly and vendor id's correctly and in the proper case, also I know the paths are correct.

The console screen then recommends I run dmesg for info. Out of the large output of text I pulled this as it seems relevant:

no version for strict module found: kernel tainted

also the very last line of dmesg is "unable to prepare driver"

I did install the correct kernal source as suggested and as I said above I believe that I did get through this step before which may be the cause of the current problem, can you tell me how to check? Also, assuming that this step has been completed correctly I did install iwconfig from my install cd and when I run it I get this message:

[root@localhost ndiswrapper-0.1]# iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions
eth0 no wireless extensions

Any thoughts? Thanks for all your help, I'm trying to migrate entirely to linux from windows and hope to do it completely within 1 year, I have never used a linux system before so it is pretty intimidating not knowing how to do anything. Thanks for the help.

did you do
make install
after doing make when you compiled ndisdriver?

Once you do make install, you can install the driver with
ndisdriver -i {path/to/inf.file}

Then do
modprobe ndiswrapper

After this, if everything worked, iwconfig should work.
Take a look at the INSTALL file that comes with the source code for more details.