Broadcom 4306 With Ndiswrapper 54 Mbps

[ubunturules]

This is the easiest way to get your Broadcom 4306 wireless card working in the shortest amount of time. I wouldn't use the firmware cutter because it only allows you to run at 11 Mbps with it. With ndiswrapper you will get 54 Mbps if your router will allow it.

The Drivers listed below work for most broadcom 4306 wireless cards but not all of them. If you use the drivers below and your card doesn't show up under network then you should try using the driver that came with your card or go to the manufacturer's website.

Get the 32 bit drivers from here (http://rapidshare.com/files/177121041/32_bit_bcmwl5.zip) or the website of the manufacturer of your wireless card.

Get the 64 bit drivers from here (http://rapidshare.com/files/177585227/64-bit_Broadcom_54g_Drivers.zip). I've heard that you don't change the name .inf file to bcmwl5.inf just keep it the way it is.

Do everything in the order as it is listed.

run the following command to make sure you have a broadcom chipset wireless card.
1.
lspci | grep Broadcom\ Corporation

2.
sudo rmmod bcm43xx
If you get an error message saying ERROR: Module bcm43xx does not exist in /proc/modules it is ok and you can move on to the next step.

3.
echo 'blacklist bcm43xx' | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

5. You will need the Ubuntu CD to get these packages.

sudo apt-get install build-essential

6.

uname -r

Insert the output of the uname -r command into the following 2 commands where the numbers are at

7.

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-2.6.22-14-generic

Insert the output of the uname -r command into the following 2 commands where the numbers are at

8.

sudo ln -s /usr/src/linux-2.6.22-14-generic /lib/modules/2.6.22-14-generic/build

Download ndiswrapper
9.

wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/ndiswrapper/ndiswrapper-1.56.tar.gz

Make a folder for ndiswrapper and place it in there
10.

mkdir ~/ndiswrapper
mv ndiswrapper-1.56.tar.gz ~/ndiswrapper

Install ndiswrapper
11.

cd ~/ndiswrapper
sudo tar -xvzf ndiswrapper-1.56.tar.gz
cd ~/ndiswrapper/ndiswrapper-1.56
make distclean
sudo make
sudo make install

12 If you are running Dapper or Edgy run this command. Some people say that compiling it works for them and some people say getting it with synaptic so I thought if you just installed both then you'll have some form of ndiswrapper working. If you don't have a working internet connection then you can get these packages off of the Ubuntu CD.

sudo apt-get install ndiswrapper-utils-1.8

If you are running Feisty or any version higher than Feisty run this command. You might need the Ubuntu CD to get these packages.

sudo apt-get install ndiswrapper-utils-1.9

If you can't get ndiswrapper from any of the sources above you can get it from the Ubuntu CD.

13.
sudo ndiswrapper -i ~/folder where driver is/bcmwl5.inf
If you are using the 64 bit drivers run this command
sudo ndiswrapper -i ~/folder where driver is/netbc564.inf
Make sure the .sys file is in there also, without it, it won't work


14.
ndiswrapper -l
To make sure the hardware is present


15.
sudo ndiswrapper -m
To load ndiswrapper automatically when the wlan0 interface is used


16.
echo 'ndiswrapper' | sudo tee -a /etc/modules

16. B

sudo gedit /etc/init.d/wirelessfix.sh
Paste this into that file

#!/bin/bash

modprobe -r b44
modprobe -r b43
modprobe -r b43legacy
modprobe -r ssb
modprobe -r ndiswrapper
modprobe ndiswrapper
modprobe b44
Close and save that file

cd /etc/init.d/ && sudo chmod 755 wirelessfix.sh

sudo update-rc.d wirelessfix.sh defaults

17.
sudo iwconfig wlan0

If you are running Gutsy or any version higher than Gutsy restart your computer and skip to step 26.
Enable the Connection

18. Go to System -> Administration -> Networking

19. If you don't see any wlan0 connections in Networking then you should restart your computer.

20. Go to your eth0 connection and disable the connection.

21. Now go to your wlan0 connection and enable it.

Network Manager

If you need WPA or WEP encryption do the following:

Note: If you are running Feisty or any version higher than Feisty you can skip steps 22 through 25.

22.
sudo apt-get install network-manager-gnome

23.
sudo gedit /etc/network/interfaces

24. Comment out anything in there at the bottom that has to do with your wireless essid. You need to also comment out anything that says eth1, eth2, or atho. When I say comment out that means put a # in from of it. You can leave all of the eth0, wlan0, lo, inet, and auto stuff.

25.
nm-applet

26. Now click on the applet that is in the top right corner and you should see all of the available connections. Click on yours and set it up.

SOLUIONS TO PROBLEMS

Problem 1

If wlan0 isn't showing up under your network connections and you're getting invalid driver errors when you run ndiswrapper -l then:

sudo gedit /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules
Look for the entry for your bcm43xx device and change the NAME at the end to wlan0, example below.

# PCI device 0x14e4:0x4320 (bcm43xx)
SUBSYSTEM=="net", DRIVERS=="?*", ATTRS{address}=="00:03:c9:70:7b:a9", NAME="wlan0"

Thanks fireant for the fix for problem 1

Problem 2
Totoro found a fix for the eth1 problem. Thank You Totoro!
add ndiswrapper to /etc/modules
change eth1 -> wlan0 in the files below:

sudo gedit /etc/modeprobe.d/ndiswrapper
sudo gedit /etc/network/interfaces
sudo gedit /etc/iftab

Problem 3
Shaton found a fix for the FATAL: Error inserting ndiswrapper problem. Thank You Shaton!
If you get an error saying

FATAL: Error inserting ndiswrapper (/lib/modules/2.6.17-10-generic/kernel/drivers/net/ndiswrapper/ndiswrapper.ko): Invalid argument

then try this.

sudo apt-get install ndiswrapper-utils-1.8
sudo rm /usr/sbin/ndiswrapper
sudo ln -s /usr/sbin/ndiswrapper-1.8 /usr/sbin/ndiswrapper

If you are using Feisty then you will need to put a 9 where the 8 is.

Problem 4
If you get a lot of error messages talking about the icon then run this command:


sudo gtk-update-icon-cache -f /usr/share/icons/hicolor/

Problem 5
If you have to run modprobe ndiswrapper every time you reboot your computer run this command.


echo 'ndiswrapper' | sudo tee -a /etc/modules

Thanks Phifer for the fix for problem 5

I hope this helps a lot of people!

[ubunturules]

did this HOWTO help anyone?

[thinkinvisible]

Worked for me as far as activation. However, upon reboot, none of my network interfaces are recognized in network manager. I'm sure it was something on my end though. Nice guide! Thanks for posting it.

EDIT: Upon a second reboot, wireless is up and running.

[ubunturules]

It's good to know I helped someone because I remember how it was back in the day when I couldn't get my wireless card working and I was tired of reading so many HOWTO's that didn't work.

[xXx 0wn3d xXx]

I don't think ndiswrapper works with network-manager but that it just from what I know. And as for deleting your interfaces file, how about commenting it out in case you need it/things don't work out. Nice tutorial by the way.

[ubunturules]

ndiswrapper does work with network-manager.

[xXx 0wn3d xXx]

ndiswrapper does work with network-manager.
Ok, like I said I wasn't sure. It didn't work with my Broadcom card and ndiswrapper.

[ubunturules]

that's weird. Did you follow this guide? Are you sure its a broadcom card? It does work with ndiswrapper though.

[xXx 0wn3d xXx]

that's weird. Did you follow this guide? Are you sure its a broadcom card? It does work with ndiswrapper though.
Well I'm using the bcm43xx kernel (2.6.17ck1) module on Archlinux but I tried to get it (Broadcom 4318 + ndiswrapper) to work a long time ago. About 2 months to be exact and it didn't work at all but everything it fine now.

[ubunturules]

awesome. good to hear.

[WADemosthenes]

Didn't show up in network manager, gone an error messege on "ndiswrapper -m" it was:

WARNING: /etc/modprobe/d/blacklist line 1: ignoring bad line starting with 'bcm43xx'

That's all that I can think of.

[elemental666]

Just got this working with a Linksys WPC54GS (bcm4306) under Xubuntu 6.06 (Fresh install). I used the driver from linksys and renamed the inf file to match the sys file. Went without a hitch, posting wirelessly now.

[ubunturules]

WADemosthenes: It's not "bcm43xx". It's "blacklist bcm43xx".

[ericesque]

any time I try to connect using nm, it just sits there "connecting to *edited essid*" then after a while it fails and I end up with no connection. Ideas?

[ubunturules]

Make sure that you don't have anything in you /etc/network/interfaces that deals with your wireless essid.

[ericesque]

yeah that's in the guide. I don't.

[Quicksilver_Johny]

I followed the instructions, and got it to work, but then booted in XP (to install Google Browser Sync), and when I booted Xubuntu the PCMCIA... thing, didn't load on startup. The Card came on, and was listed in ifconfig, but I couldn't connect to the network. I ran through the instructions again, still same problem. -/

Also, For some reason Ndiswrapper uses eth1 and not wlan0. /etc/modprobe.d/ndiswrapper automatically says wlan0 though, and, when kept that way, It doesn't show up in System>Administration>Networking, but when edited to eth1, it does. I'm not sure if this matters.

[ericesque]

heh. I think I overlooked the fact that this is a 4306 tut, not broadcom in general. I have the infamous 4318 so I suppose I shouldn't expect this to work regardless. oops.

[benmoreassynt]

This is an excellent and simple howto that will work for many of the millions of Lynksys WRT54G users (although you need to check you have a Broadcom 4306 version of the card, as some have Texas Instruments chipsets, and are quite different. See other posts and WIKIs about how to find out if you WRT54G version. if all else fails Linksys support will be able to tell you which version you have). I know other cards and laptops use the BCM 4306 chipset, but it is handy for others to know this specifically works with the Linksys card.

I'm on my third time setting up a Ubuntu laptop with a linksys card, and it is always a pain, but these instructions are the best and simplest, and easiest to understand of the lot - highly recommended.

Follow the instructions precisely, including using the suggested URL to get the driver and inf file - you do NOT need to go to the linksys website to get the driver (although that will work too, but [THIS IS IMPORTANT, AND SELDOM MENTIONED] you then need to rename the .inf file that you will find in the download to bcmwl5.inf. I THINK the file you need to rename is called lsbcmnds.inf, but don't quote me on that. That is what I did first time around 9 months ago)

If the 1st instruction (which unloads the native driver) in the list returns a 'not found' error of some sort, don't worry but complete the rest of the instructions and then restart your computer for the changes to take effect - the native driver will be prevented from loading again.

Final note - I have had no success with using the 'native' bcmxx driver that comes with Ubuntu combined with fwcutter. The ndiswrapper route for WRT54G seems much easier, and works perfectly well, if not better (it may allow faster connections as far as I can see). There's no advantage in using the included driver, as the abscence of firmware means it is still a pain to set up. Why bother with this apparently more complex route?

[bunnicula]

I followed the instructions in the first post and when I run sudo ndiswrapper -l, it says that I have an invalid driver (I took the driver off of my Windows cd) and I get an error if I try to move on to the next step. Any ideas?

[bunnicula]

I downloaded some new drivers and they appear to have installed fine. I was also able to follow the rest of the instructions without any problems. Unfortunately, my wireless connection still isn't working. The Network Manager says that it is an active wlan0 connection, wireless networks are visible from the properties screen, and the Network Monitor says that the connection is idle. But the connection still isn't working...I've tried rebooting and re-entering my WEP password a couple of times, but it still isn't working. Now what?

[ubunturules]

I have no idea sorry. I've never heard of this problem before.

[MarinaraOfDeath]

I downloaded some new drivers and they appear to have installed fine. I was also able to follow the rest of the instructions without any problems. Unfortunately, my wireless connection still isn't working. The Network Manager says that it is an active wlan0 connection, wireless networks are visible from the properties screen, and the Network Monitor says that the connection is idle. But the connection still isn't working...I've tried rebooting and re-entering my WEP password a couple of times, but it still isn't working. Now what?

Unfortunately you cannot use your specific windows drivers, you have to use the drivers that match both ndiswrapper and your family of wireless adapter. You may thus lose some vedor specific features but should be able to use the basic connectivity just fine. I discovered this during my epic struggle to get wireless working in Fedora 4.

[ubunturules]

Get the drivers from home.nc.rr.com/thehinnants/drivers.

[bunnicula]

I used the drivers from here: home.nc.rr.com/thehinnants/stuff/drivers

It says the drivers are active but my wireless still doesn't work...

[noseeme]

Yessss! This worked perfectly!!! Thank you!

This was the only post I found that adressed what the real problem was with my wireless setup.
I didn't realize that the whole reason the wireless wouldn't work was because Ubuntu's native broadcom wireless driver was conflicting with ndiswrapper.
The wireless device I am using is a Linksys WMP54G (version 2), which obviously uses a broadcom chip.

Thanks again for helping, I wish I had remembered that ubuntu already had a driver that I needed to blacklist!

[bunnicula]

I just realised that I didn't do this portion of the tutorial:



If you need WPA or WEP encryption do the following:

Code:

sudo apt-get install network-manager-gnome


Code:

nm-applet


if you get a lot of error messages talking about the icon then run this command:

Code:

sudo gtk-update-icon-cache -f /usr/share/icons/hicolor/


Code:

sudo gedit /etc/network/interfaces


Comment out anything in there at the bottom that has to do with your wireless essid. When I say comment out that means but a # in from of it. You can leave all of the lo, inet, and auto stuff.

Now click on the applet that came up in the top right corner and you should see all of the available connections. Click on yours and set it up.


I had originally tried to do the part about the network manager, but I got some error messages. I then realised that there was already a Network Manager applet (or at least I assume that is what the computer icon in the right-hand corner is) and so I figured that I didn't need to do that part.

I just tried to do run the last line of code, but that didn't fix anything...is there something that I am missing (or doing horribly wrong)? I can see the wireless networks nearby (including my own), so I know that the card is working...could it have something to do with the encryption?

[ubunturules]

make sure you ran:.

sudo gedit /etc/network/interfaces
if you did that, you should have no problems. You don't have to run this command if can already see your interfaces in the nm-applet.

[benmoreassynt]

Sorry - irrelevant post. Cannot how to see to delete it.

[foxy123]

it worked very well, so I have now 54g instead of 11g with a native driver. However, I have to do

sudo modprobe ndiswrapper

every time after th eboot to bring the card up.

sudo ndiswrapper -m
does not help. Any suggestions?

Please note that I have had ndiswrapper before and then I switched to the native Linux driver provided in the kernel.

[ubunturules]

Make sure you did

sudo rmmod bcm43xx

Do you have a file called /etc/modprobe.d/bcm43xx.
If you do, delete it.

then try

sudo ndiswrapper -m

sudo modprobe ndiswrapper

[foxy123]

Make sure you did

sudo rmmod bcm43xx

Do you have a file called /etc/modprobe.d/bcm43xx.
If you do, delete it.

then try

sudo ndiswrapper -m

sudo modprobe ndiswrapper

no I do not have /etc/modprobe.d/bcm43xx :-?

[Totoro]

Hello,

Same problem here.


sudo ndiswrapper -m
write "alias wlan0 ndiswrapper" in /etc/modprobe.d/ndiswrapper

but in Network Manager, I have eth1. :-?

I try to change eth1 -> wlan0 in /etc/network/interface. After reboot, the applet is green :mrgreen: but in configuration, it's always eth1 :evil: and I have no network...

(sorry for my bad english)

[Totoro]

I have add "ndiswrapper" in /etc/modules (not sur it's need)

change eth1 -> wlan0 in :
/etc/modeprobe.d/ndiswrapper
/etc/network/interface
/etc/iftab

and it's work ^^

[new2linux2000]

edit - i spoke too soon. i rebooted.. i cant believe it! it works! omg.. you are my hero. everyone who posted here, you are all my heroes!

[ubunturules]

Thanks Totoro for the fix! I will add this to the guide.

[foxy123]

I have add "ndiswrapper" in /etc/modules (not sur it's need)

change eth1 -> wlan0 in :
/etc/modeprobe.d/ndiswrapper
/etc/network/interface
/etc/iftab

and it's work ^^

thanks a lot, it helped...

[michael1977]

Just wanted to thank you greatly for this how to. It worked for me and now I have good wireless speed. I originally used the firmwarecutter how to and it worked but it took any where from 2 to 5 minutes to load google.com. So thank you thank you thank you.

"you are a god among insects"

[ubunturules]

I'm glad to hear that it helped you. I've never tried the firmware cutter but I heard a lot of problems with slow connections. I think eventually that will be fixed but for now ndiswrapper is the way to go.

[RyanTMulligan]

0000:03:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4306 802.11b/g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 03)
Subsystem: Linksys WPC54G
Flags: fast devsel, IRQ 10
Memory at 24000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [disabled] [size=8K]
Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 2


I tried following the tutorial you gave but when I do ndiswrapper -l
I get...

root@rtmlappy:/home/rmulliga/Desktop# ndiswrapper -l
Installed ndis drivers:
bcmwl5 invalid driver!


Any ideas would be a great help. UbuntuRules, what does your lspci -v say?

[ubunturules]

RyanTMulligan: Go to home.nc.rr.com/thehinnants/stuff/drivers to get the drivers or get the drivers from the linksys website. You will need to save the .inf file as bcmwl5.inf if you get it from home.nc.rr.com/thehinnants/stuff/drivers. If you get it from the linksys website you will need to do it on a windows box because it is a .exe file. You could possibly do it using wine to get the drivers from the .exe but I've never tried it. You probably used the drivers from the cd which come up as invalid driver because I had this problem a long time ago.

my lspci -v is:
0000:01:0b.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4306 802.11b/g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 02)
Subsystem: Linksys: Unknown device 0013
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 64, IRQ 11
Memory at f4100000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8K]
Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 2

Hope this helps!

[nosam]

Hi, I've played with a few Linux distros but have never been able to get my Linksys WMP54G to work. I really like Ubuntu and am hoping I can get it to work. I know it has Broadcom 4306 because I did:
lspci | grep Broadcom\ Corporation in the terminal and got Broadcom 4306. I found that command on another thread.


I got as far as "sudo apt-get install ndiswrapper-utils" but got

E: couldn't find package ndiswrapper-utils

I'm not too good when it gets down to the nuts and bolts of linux so I know i'm probably making some noob mistake. :rolleyes:

What did I do wrong? Thanks

[ubunturules]

That's the exact card I have so this guide should work for you.

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list
enable everything, which means take all of the #'s out that are infront of the word deb.

If you don't have any special repositories then you can just copy and paste this in your sources.list which might be easier for you.

## Uncomment the following two lines to fetch updated software from the network
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper main restricted
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper main restricted

## Uncomment the following two lines to fetch major bug fix updates produced
## after the final release of the distribution.
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper-updates main restricted
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper-updates main restricted

## Uncomment the following two lines to add software from the 'universe'
## repository.
## N.B. software from this repository is ENTIRELY UNSUPPORTED by the Ubuntu
## team, and may not be under a free licence. Please satisfy yourself as to
## your rights to use the software. Also, please note that software in
## universe WILL NOT receive any review or updates from the Ubuntu security
## team.
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper universe multiverse
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper universe multiverse

## Uncomment the following two lines to add software from the 'backports'
## repository.
## N.B. software from this repository may not have been tested as
## extensively as that contained in the main release, although it includes
## newer versions of some applications which may provide useful features.
## Also, please note that software in backports WILL NOT receive any review
## or updates from the Ubuntu security team.
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper-backports main restricted universe multiverse
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper-backports main restricted universe multiverse

deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper-security main restricted
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper-security main restricted

deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper-security universe multiverse
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper-security universe multiverse

save the file then run.


sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install ndiswrapper-utils

[nosam]

Ok, did that part exactly like you said. Went to do:

sudo ndiswrapper -i ~/desktop/bcmwl5.inf

and got


sudo: ndiswrapper: command not found

I don't know much about linux but i'm thinking that i'm incorrectly pointing it to where the .inf and .sys files are. I have them on my desktop in ubuntu. So would "~/desktop/bcmwl5.inf" be correct or would it be "~/home/matt/desktop/bcmwl5.inf" or what?

Thanks alot for your help by the way. I really appreciate it.

[ubunturules]

did the sudo apt-get install ndiswarpper-utils go fine?
another thing is Desktop needs to be capitalized.
it would be ~/Desktop/bcmwl5.inf

[nosam]

I believe there might have been text regarding some sort of error, but there was alot of text that is beyond me. In the end it didn't actually stop me from moving on so I kept going. I will go back and make sure to capitalize the 'd' on desktop. Sorry.:rolleyes:

[nosam]

No luck with making sure the 'd' in Desktop was capitalized. Any more suggestions?

[ubunturules]

try this again

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

Delete everything that is in there.
Copy and paste the following into the file.

## Uncomment the following two lines to fetch updated software from the network
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper main restricted
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper main restricted

## Uncomment the following two lines to fetch major bug fix updates produced
## after the final release of the distribution.
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper-updates main restricted
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper-updates main restricted

## Uncomment the following two lines to add software from the 'universe'
## repository.
## N.B. software from this repository is ENTIRELY UNSUPPORTED by the Ubuntu
## team, and may not be under a free licence. Please satisfy yourself as to
## your rights to use the software. Also, please note that software in
## universe WILL NOT receive any review or updates from the Ubuntu security
## team.
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper universe multiverse
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper universe multiverse

## Uncomment the following two lines to add software from the 'backports'
## repository.
## N.B. software from this repository may not have been tested as
## extensively as that contained in the main release, although it includes
## newer versions of some applications which may provide useful features.
## Also, please note that software in backports WILL NOT receive any review
## or updates from the Ubuntu security team.
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper-backports main restricted universe multiverse
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper-backports main restricted universe multiverse

deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper-security main restricted
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper-security main restricted

deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper-security universe multiverse
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper-security universe multiverse

save the file.


sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install ndiswrapper-utils

that should work.

[nosam]

I replaced everything in that file with exactly what you posted and saved the file. Here's what I got when I did "sudo apt-get update":


matt@matt-desktop:~$ sudo apt-get update
Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com dapper Release.gpg
Temporary failure resolving 'us.archive.ubuntu.com'
Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com dapper-updates Release.gpg
Temporary failure resolving 'us.archive.ubuntu.com'
Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com dapper-backports Release.gpg
Temporary failure resolving 'us.archive.ubuntu.com'
Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com dapper-security Release.gpg
Temporary failure resolving 'security.ubuntu.com'
Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/dapper/Release.gpg
Temporary failure resolving 'us.archive.ubuntu.com'
Failed to fecth http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/dapper-updates/Release.gpg
Temporary failure resolving 'us.archive.ubuntu.com'
Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/dapper-backports/Release.gpg
Temporary failure resolving 'us.archive.ubuntu.com
Failed to fetch http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/dapper-security/Release.gpg
Temporary failure resolving 'security.ubuntu.com'
Reading package lists... Done
W: Some index files failed to download, the have been ignored, or old ones used instead.

Then I tried:


matt@matt-desktop:~$ sudo apt-get install ndiswrapper-utils
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
E: Couldn't find package ndiswrapper-utils

Then for the hell of it I did:


matt@matt-desktop:~$ sudo ndiswrapper -i ~/Desktop/bcmwl5.inf
sudo: ndiswrapper: command not found
matt@matt-desktop:~$ sudo ndiswrapper -i ~/home/matt/Desktop/bcmwl5.inf
sudno: ndiswrapper: command not found

:confused:

[ubunturules]

You do have a working internet connection right?

[nosam]

Well no. I can't run an ethernet cable to where I am in my house, hence getting the wireless to work. You're telling me I have to be connected to the internet to be able to get my wireless connection to work? If so, and that's kind of ridiculous, then I guess I'm going to have to take this whole thing to the basement just to set this up. If I do so will these steps then work properly?

[ubunturules]

You need a working internet connection to get the ndiswrapper-utils. Yes it is kinda rediculous but once you do all of the steps will run smoothly.

[nosam]

EDIT: Nevermind. It appears to be working now. Thanks for the help man.

[ubunturules]

No problem man. Glad to here you got it working!

[raalynthslair]

Not to sound like a bad/cheap plug here... BUT the Fedora Core 5 DVD Iso I downloaded for my laptop has the 2.6.15... kernel and it has the drivers installed by default during the system install. It just worked out of the box on my Compaq Presario R3000. I've not yet had the chance to try the Ubuntu latest build yet (at the time the FC5 AMD64 build was more current than Ubuntu's - though Ubuntu has the same kernel and Gnome versions I use on FC5 so I expect its days (FC5 that is) are limited now. ^_^ )

Zor

[tsb]

The ndiswrapper utilities can be installed from the CD for those w/o a connection.

Anyone wanting to stick with the debian/ubuntu base can try MEPIS. My 4306 works fine after blacklisting the native driver and changing the wireless from etho0 to wlan0 in the configuration menu. No need for ndiswrapper either. MEPIS 6 goes final tomorrow AFAIK. I'm dual booting Ubuntu and MEPIS 6 now. MEPIS is a better KDE alternative than Kubuntu IMO and Ubuntu is my favorite GNOME'd distro.

[ubunturules]

I forgot you could install stuff from the Ubuntu CD. Thank you tsb. I will add this to the guide.

[nosam]

Damn. It works, but everytime I restart it doesn't. After logging in I'll go to System>Administration>Networking and the wireless connection doesn't even show up as an option. BUT if I do "sudo modprobe ndiswrapper" in the terminal then it will show up. The weirder part is that the little network connections icon is always there in the panel, but it never shows that anything is connected. Like right now I'm on ubuntu over my wireless connection and when you left click on it it says "no network devices have been found". I don't think it even worked when I had this thing hooked up via a hard line.

None of this is really that big of a deal since in the end I am on the internet wirelessly. I just wondered if you might have any ideas. Thanks again.

[sp0nge]

Well I thought I'd give this a go, as I finally made the leap to Ubuntu just over a week ago and miss the freedom of the wireless network on my Dell Inspiron 1000. The boradcom BCM94306 is not easily supported that I can see. This is the third How To I've tried and I'm about to go buy another wireless card and give that a go. Anyone out there have any suggestions otherwise?

I get to the point of ndiswrapper -l in the terminal then get this:
Installed ndis drivers:
bcmwl5 invalid driver!

[ubunturules]

No don't do that. There is an easy fix to this. Go to home.nc.rr.com/thehinnants/stuff/drivers and get the drivers from there. If you use those you will have no problem. Just make sure you save the .inf file on the website as bcmwl5.inf. Hope this helps you.

[foxy123]

Damn. It works, but everytime I restart it doesn't. After logging in I'll go to System>Administration>Networking and the wireless connection doesn't even show up as an option. BUT if I do "sudo modprobe ndiswrapper" in the terminal then it will show up. The weirder part is that the little network connections icon is always there in the panel, but it never shows that anything is connected. Like right now I'm on ubuntu over my wireless connection and when you left click on it it says "no network devices have been found". I don't think it even worked when I had this thing hooked up via a hard line.

None of this is really that big of a deal since in the end I am on the internet wirelessly. I just wondered if you might have any ideas. Thanks again.

add ndiswrapper in /etc/modules

[lukem]

ubunturules:
thank you very much for taking the time to put this how to together. My motorola wn825g card now works on a dell d600. The first time through the process i got an error that the inf file could not be copied (something about line 135) and sure enough when i finished the process it did not work. I even got the invalid driver error mentioned above. I deleted the driver and tried again and it worked the second time. I got the driver from home.nc.rr.com/thehinnants/stuff/drivers. It did not download as I expected when I clicked on it. Rather it was opened as a text file and I just saved it from there.

Thanks again. If you get the time to explain what all of this is actually doing it would be a real education for those of us (me) who don't understand it all :)

Thanks
lukem

[Ulysses]

Hello

This is a very good instruction
I followed it to the letter. Or at least, I think I did.
For some reason the following has occured:
When I check for the wireless card in terminal, it is there
When I check for the wireless card using system>administration>networking, all that shows is my modem / it doesn't even show my regular network connection
On the toolbar on the upper right portion of my screen are two networking incons
One is my network connection / this is the icon that I think represents the Network Manager Applet (that's what it says when I click on 'about)
The other icon is also for the network connection / though this one says that it is wlan0 - I thought when I followed the directions that this would be the name of my wireless network?

Oh, dear. I think I've made a mistake but I don't know where to start.
Before I start rewiring my house so I have a cable outlet in every room, can someone please help with this?

RAR

[ubunturules]

Ulysses: I don't know what you should do. Maybe reinstalling the driver would help.

do:

sudo ndiswrapper -e bcmwl5.inf

sudo ndiswrapper -i ~/place where driver is/bcmwl5.inf

a reboot might be needed. Im not really sure. Any body else have any ideas?

[nosam]

add ndiswrapper in /etc/modules

It won't let me save the file.

[ubunturules]

sudo gedit /etc/modules

add ndiswrapper

click the save button.

[nosam]

sudo gedit /etc/modules

add ndiswrapper

click the save button.

It's weird, nothing happens. But I can see and open the file in /etc, here are the contents of it if that helps:


# /etc/modules: kernel modules to load at boot time.
#
# This file contains the names of kernel modules that should be loaded
# at boot time, one per line. Lines beginning with "#" are ignored.

lp
psmouse

[ubunturules]

try:

sudo nano /etc/modules

nano is another text editor.

[nosam]

Did that.

I still have no connection upon logging into ubuntu. But now when I go to System>Admin>Networking the wireless option is there. Along with the ethernet connection, both are "active". I have to deactivate the ethernet connection and go into properties for my wireless connection (where my ssid and wep key are already entered and are correct), hit ok, and it will activate the wireless connection. Then I hit ok to close the "Networking" box.

I restarted and noticed when ubuntu is loading that both "Basic Networking..." and "Configuring Network Devices..." have "failed" to the right instead of "ok" like everything else. Would this have anything to do with it?

Also, the networking icon on the panel does nothing. It says "No network connection" when you hold the mouse over it (yet I'm writing this post). Right-clicking on it shows "Enable networking" checked but "Connection information" is grayed out. The icon just has the two computers with a little exclamation point in the bottom right corner.

Again, thanks for your help.

[ubunturules]

Yeah that could have something to do with it.
do a:

sudo gedit /etc/network/interfaces

put a "#" in front of anything that has to do with your wireless essid. That might help. You dont want to enter any information in System>Admin>Networking about your wireless essid and password because you want Network Manager to deal with it and it will cause a confliction and it won't work.

[nosam]

Yeah that could have something to do with it.
do a:

sudo gedit /etc/network/interfaces

put a "#" in front of anything that has to do with your wireless essid. That might help. You dont want to enter any information in System>Admin>Networking about your wireless essid and password because you want Network Manager to deal with it and it will cause a confliction and it won't work.

Ok, I'm not really sure what I did (because I already had the ssid and wep key commented out in /etc/network/interfaces) but I got the network manager applet to work. I was able to enter in my ssid and wep key and the icon starting working with the lights etc. After a moment it turned into the bars and said that it was connected... but firefox couldn't open any pages and gaim couldn't connect either. I then went into System>Admin>Networking to see what was in there--in options for wireless connection everything was blank (I'm assuming because I commented out what I did in /etc/network/interfaces) and "enable this connection" was checked. Finally, fed up, I entered in my ssid and wep key in there and I was able to get on the internet. The network manager applet now doesn't work just like before. I must have missed something somewhere but I have gone back and checked everything. Here is exactly what is in my /etc/network/interfaces file as of this moment, while connected, after entering in my ssid/wep through System>Admin>Networking.

/etc/network/interfaces:


auto lo
iface lo inet loopback


iface eth0 inet dhcp


iface wlan0 inet dhcp
wireless-essid 1
wireless-key "my key here"
#wireless-essid 1
#wireless-key "my key here"
#wireless-essid 1


auto eth2
iface eth2 inet dhcp

auto ath0


Here is /etc/modeprobe.d/ndiswrapper:


alias wlan0 ndiswrapper

/etc/iftab:


# This file assigns persistent names to network interfaces.
# See iftab(5) for syntax.

eth0 mac 00:07:e9:e9:99:ff arp 1
wlan0 mac 00:0c:41:12:f6:56 arp 1




Sorry I can't seem to get this to work right.

[johnzilla]

Hope someone can help... I've followed the instructions to the letter, and am having difficulty...


ndiswrapper -l

reports that bcmwl5 driver is present, hardware is present. (downloaded an installed from the website as directed.)

/etc/network/interfaces has the following entry:


auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet dhcp

I've run ndiswrapper -m and confirmed that an alias has been created in /etc/modprobe.d/ndiswrapper

I applied Totoro's fixes so that all references point to wlan0, not eth1.

BUT wlan0 isn't displayed in the System->Admin->Networking app, nor does it appear in nm-applet, only eth0 and lo show up.

Anyone have any idea what I'm overlooking? (It is late and I am tired, so I'm sure the fault is my own.)

Out of frustration I even opened up my laptop to make sure I am in fact using at 4306. (I am. )

Thanks!

-John

[ubunturules]

nosam: I'm not really sure what's wrong but if you got it to work without NetworkManager then don't use NetworkManager. Go to System>Preferences>Sessions and click on the startup tab and delete nm-applet --sm-disable. If you wanted to get it to work with nm-applet you must comment out everything that has to do with your essid and key. You leave all of the iface, lo, and auto stuff.

johnzilla:run:
sudo modprobe ndiswrapperYou might need a reboot. Reboot and post back what happened.

[johnzilla]

Thanks for the help, I ran that about 20 times, no dice. I went through the whole process about 6 more times, still no luck.

Having only just installed Ubuntu, I decided to do a fresh install. Sure enough, after a fresh install, wireless set up perfectly first time.

I guess I must have broken something while I was trying to get networking up before I found this post.

[ubunturules]

Glad to here you got everything working. It does help if you do it after a fresh install. That's the first thing I do after a fresh install is getting wireless working.

[devan]

pardon the ignorance, but I have a broadcom 4306 (rev 3). I saw in this post ubunturules, that you had REV 2. Will these steps work with REV 3 with the same driver?

I have wifi working with the built in driver and firmware, but i would like 54mbps.

Thanks!

[jISh]

Thank ya. My Motorola card works just fine now :)

[ubunturules]

Devan: Yes it will work.

jISH: Glad to here that you got it working.

[felixdzerzhinsky]

Worked for me as well.

Thanks

[timofthec]

hi.
first off - my apologies for not reading the entirety of this thread - its very long and i'm at work (naughty me)so if this question has already bee asked and answered - sorry :-# .

anyway, i've been trying for a few days now to get my wireless network up and running without a great deal of success and am going to try yet again using this posted guide (fingers crossed)

However, there is one part that i'm not sure about which is: -


add "blacklist bcm43xx" to the bottom of the file. Without the quotation marks.


what is this telling me to do? to the bottom of which file should i be adding blacklist bcm43xx to?

oh, and do i type bcm43xx or do i replace the xx with something specific to my card?

thanx in advance :D

[foxy123]

hi.
first off - my apologies for not reading the entirety of this thread - its very long and i'm at work (naughty me)so if this question has already bee asked and answered - sorry :-# .

anyway, i've been trying for a few days now to get my wireless network up and running without a great deal of success and am going to try yet again using this posted guide (fingers crossed)

However, there is one part that i'm not sure about which is: -


what is this telling me to do? to the bottom of which file should i be adding blacklist bcm43xx to?

oh, and do i type bcm43xx or do i replace the xx with something specific to my card?

thanx in advance :D
just open the file /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist and add

blacklist bcm43xx
to the bottom of the file. it will blacklist the native bcm43xx driver.

[dk5151]

Everything seems to be going smoothly for me in the process until the step when I am supposed to deactivate my ethernet connection and activate my wireless. I it only lists my ethernet connection and the modem connection, but no wireless. It listed the wireless before I found this guide (didn't work, of course). I'm not sure where I may have went wrong. This has happened twice now.

[ubunturules]

do a:

sudo ndiswrapper -e bcmwl5

then a:


sudo ndiswrapper -i bcmwl5.inf

[dk5151]

Uninstalled and reinstalled, as you suggested, and I'm still getting the same results. I did a 'ndiswrapper -l' after remove/install to make sure that it worked at each step and both steps were fine. This is now the third time I've tried and I don't understand why it's not working. The old driver is blacklisted, that's why it doesn't appear, correct? But the new driver should make it reappear, right? I'm new to Linux in general so I'm trying to make sure that I understand what I'm doing instead of typing random commands. I was trying to use the 64 bit version but I even tried reinstalling with the 32 bit, but the same results. The driver is installed in ndiswrapper, any ideas what could be in the way?

[ubunturules]

what does ndiswrapper -l give you?

[dk5151]

It tells me that the driver and hardware are both present. I don't have it in front of me at the moment, so I can't remember the exact syntax.

*Edit: I just checked, the exact syntax is: "bcmwl5 driver present, hardware present"

During the process, when I do the 'sudo ndiswrapper -m" I don't get any input, it just goes back to the command prompt, is it supposed to tell me anything there?

[ubunturules]

No ndiswrapper -m isn't supposed to tell you anything right there. Have you rebooted your computer?

[Otto-C]

I too have lost the wireless option on
system > admin. >networking. Inadvertantly
deactivated it. Wireless worked great.
How do I get it back?
tia
OC

[ubunturules]

sudo ndiswrapper -e bcmwl5
which will uninstall the driver


sudo ndiswrapper -i bcmwl5.inf
which will install the driver


sudo modprobe ndiswrapper

you might need to reboot.

ps:this guide works best when doing it right after a fresh install.

[dk5151]

No ndiswrapper -m isn't supposed to tell you anything right there. Have you rebooted your computer?

Yes, I've rebooted. The firmware cutter method seems to be giving me better results right now, but I would really like to get ndiswrapper going so that I can use wireless G instead of B.

[ubunturules]

This method seems to work better with a fresh install. I promise.

[CeeDub]

I'm having the exact same problem as dk5151. I've had ubuntu for a while now, so how can I go about doing a fresh install without losing a lot of what i've done so far? Or is that possible?

[neurotech]

Okay. I've just gone through the tutorial for a second time, on a fresh install of Ubuntu 6.06, AMD64bit. My card is a Linksys WMP54G as stated by lspci:


0000:05:06.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4306 802.11b/g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 03)

After 3 reboots at various stages, (all done after a "sudo modprobe ndiswrapper") my card is not appearing in Networking. The only item in the list is my ppp0 modem connection. I'm now at wit's end. I'm sure I haven't done anything wrong. I used the drivers from the recommended site, and done every step of the tutorial carefully.

Does anyone have any ideas on how I can fix this? I'm very tempted to buy a different card just so I can get wireless net access.

[ubunturules]

That's the same card I have. Make sure you get the drivers from the home.nc.rr.com/thehinnants/stuff/drivers.
try:
sudo ndiswrapper -e bcmwl5
sudo ndiswrapper -i bcmwl5.inf

That should work.

[neurotech]

That's the same card I have. Make sure you get the drivers from the home.nc.rr.com/thehinnants/stuff/drivers.
try:
sudo ndiswrapper -e bcmwl5
sudo ndiswrapper -i bcmwl5.inf

That should work.

Okay, should I use those commands literally or should I specify the path in the second command i.e. "sudo ndiswrapper -i ~/bcmwl5.inf" ?

[ubunturules]

you should specify the path in the second command.

[punx45]

the good news is thanks to this guide i finally got a valid driver installed.

the bad news is when i "sudo modprobe ndiswrapper" i get yelled at thusly:


FATAL: Error inserting ndiswrapper (/lib/modules/2.6.15-23-386/misc/ndiswrapper.ko): Invalid argument

i checked my .bash_history against the guide and followed all steps. also rebooted and uninstalled and reinstalled the bcmwl5.inf.

i checked, and ~/ndiswrapper.ko does exist.

also read through this entire discussion and didnt see anything related to this error message.

[neurotech]

you should specify the path in the second command.

No luck. Any other ideas? :(

[hw-tph]

Okay. I've just gone through the tutorial for a second time, on a fresh install of Ubuntu 6.06, AMD64bit.

You need to use a 64bit driver (.inf and .sys file). A 64bit ndiswrapper module cannot load a 32bit Windows driver. You can find 64bit drivers attached here (http://ubuntuforums.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=186).


That's the same card I have. Make sure you get the drivers from the home.nc.rr.com/thehinnants/stuff/drivers.

That's misleading. Those are 32bit drivers and won't be of any help to neurotech. Grab the drivers I linked to above instead.

Making a note of 64bit vs 32bit in the howto and provide links for both would probable save a lot of people a lot of time.



Håkan

[ubunturules]

punx45: make sure you run

sudo ndiswrapper -m
before you run

sudo modprobe ndiswrapper

neurotech: Read hw-tph's post.

hw-tph: you are correct about neurotech's problem. I over read 64 bit part.

[CeeDub]

That 64-bit 32-bit thing seemed to have done something. For one, when I installed the driver, the terminal says:
Forcing parameter IBSSGMODEL 0 to IBSSGMODEL 2
Forcing parameter IBSSGMODEL 0 to IBSSGMODEL 2
Forcing parameter IBSSGMODEL 0 to IBSSGMODEL 2
Forcing parameter IBSSGMODEL 0 to IBSSGMODEL 2
Forcing parameter IBSSGMODEL 0 to IBSSGMODEL 2
Forcing parameter IBSSGMODEL 0 to IBSSGMODEL 2
Forcing parameter IBSSGMODEL 0 to IBSSGMODEL 2

Is that a good thing? I ask this because now the network manager can find the wireless spots, which it couldn't with the other driver, but it still won't connect. It tries to, but it never does. Any ideas on what I'm doing wrong?

[mkw87]

I'm having trouble getting this to work as well, I'd really like to do it this way too. My thread I started is here (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=1311717#post1311717) (not to hijack, just looking for help). Thanks.

[ubunturules]

what is your problem?

[mkw87]

The hardware is recognized, but the internet does not work. I honestly have no idea how to troubleshoot from here, ever step I followed gave the expected result...except for the wireless working (connecting, it appears to work but not connect?)

I followed the steps exactly, and have rebooted several times, one thing to note is that I have no entry it /etc/iftab, its blank/does not exist, not sure if thats a problem or not.

[joypunk]

You are my hero. I've been trying for over a week to get my BCM4306 adapter online with Ubuntu. Nothing has worked... this guide worked flawlessly.

[neurotech]

Thanks for that hw-tph, I'll try that when I get home. I have a good feeling about it this time!

[mkw87]

I installed the gnome network manager, but it only lists my wired connect? However, in sys -> admin -> networking, wlan0 is still present, any idea?

edit: Ok, I got it to show up by commenting everything in /etc/networking/interfaces out except the lo and loopback lines. Now I entered my wep key and it tries to connect but never does...

The router sees the computer as well, but the iwconfig shows the computer working off of 2.462GHz and not the default 2.437GHz, so I changed the router, but it didnt seem to help, is there a way to change the computers signal frequency?

[punx45]

punx45: make sure you run

sudo ndiswrapper -m
before you run

sudo modprobe ndiswrapper

i did.

[n.arciss.us]

did this HOWTO help anyone?

Thanks SO much!!!! Now I can finally get rid of the 25ft cable snaking around my living room. (Wife will be very happy!):KS


EDIT: Works fine except that network manager doesn't hold the key after reboot. Could this have anything to do with running a Gnome applet in a KDE enviroment??

[ubunturules]

n.arciss.us : They are hoping to fix that problem in the next version of Network Manager. But to that is not a problem. That is what is supposed to happen.

[n.arciss.us]

n.arciss.us : They are hoping to fix that problem in the next version of Network Manager. But to that is not a problem. That is what is supposed to happen.


I kinda thought that might be the reasoning. If that's the case, then its fine with me ... I DO have wireless now!

[neurotech]

hw-tph, do I need to rename the drivers you attached to your reply or anything?

[ubunturules]

make sure they are named bcmwl5.inf and bcmwl5.sys

[yotoad]

if i have rev 02 card like yours, and my hardware and driver are present -- i can't get the card to connect (plus it's called eth1)

thanks for your help

[yotoad]

ubunturules

i followed your instruction to a T and it works! that is, the light is on on the card and the card shows up in Network Settings

but i have a couple of questions -- after i rebooted, the wireless connection is showing up as eth1 (and active) -- when i try to edit the list of files to change eth1 to wlan0, i can't save the file because it is read-only.

and, the application at the top right corner is not showing up anything besides eth0 and lo

thanks for your help

[punx45]

ubunturules

-- when i try to edit the list of files to change eth1 to wlan0, i can't save the file because it is read-only.



as far as editing the read only files, edit with root power such as
sudo gedit ~/file

[yotoad]

okay, so now everything is working, however when i connect to a wifi hotspot -- as i just did a second ago, i was able to connect to the router but not the internet -- for instance, this forum or google, or anything --
any help?

[mkw87]

okay, so now everything is working, however when i connect to a wifi hotspot -- as i just did a second ago, i was able to connect to the router but not the internet -- for instance, this forum or google, or anything --
any help?
Is yours named ethX or wlanX? I have a rev 02 that I have semi-working (ie: it sees the router, the router sees it, but it won't connect).

@ Ubunturules, does it matter that its wlanX vs ethX? If not, any idea why it wont connect? I have tried both with and without WEP, and it connects when using windows, so I know both work properly (router and lappy)

[yotoad]

i renamed mine to wlanX

[ubunturules]

Most people have success with wlanX

[rlynch]

man, I gotta say thanks. It took me 5+ hours of trying things out before finding this thread.


1 - Thanks for posting how to change eth1 to wlan0
2 - Thanks for posting the inf and sys driver files
3 - Thanks for taking the time and posting this tutorial. I thought without wireless my Ubuntu use will be cut short.


Thanks again!

[Der Eisern Pinguin]

Hello,

I've been using this how-to and all has gone well until I use ndiswrapper to install the driver (bcmwl5.inf). When I type


ndiswrapper -l

the output shows something along the lines of:



bcmwl5 - invalid driver!

As per your tutorial, both the .inf and .sys files are in the same directory, /home/kenneth/4318.

Has anyone else had this issue?

Edit: I thought I should mention that I am using this tutorial to install the Broadcom 4318 drivers for the Broadcom 4318 card. I don't know if there are esential differences in the installation of the drivers for these cards that would preclude using the same process.

[Der Eisern Pinguin]

Okay, with some fresh drivers, running


ndiswrapper -l

yields a much more pleasing


Installed ndis drivers:
bcmwl5 driver present, hardware present

However, when I go to System -> Administration -> Networking, I still only see 'Ethernet connection' and 'Modem connection.' The entry for my wireless card which disappeared after killing bcm43xx is still absent.

[rlynch]

I must say I love having wireless, but right after I login, before the splash screen. I have a really long 6-7 minute pause now after doing this how-to.

Any Ideas?

[lukeluke]

Thanks a lot for this guide! Now my wireless is working perfectly! :p

[yotoad]

mine is named wlan0, but it still doesn't connect to the internet for software updates, or firefox, or anything.

it does however, connect to my windows network and i'm able to browse my closed network (not connected to the internet, just for file-sharing within my own network)

any help? are there things i need to do to set up firefox? or in order to download software updates?

[yotoad]

Anybody have any pointers on my comment above?

[yotoad]

Anybody have any pointers on my comment above?

[dk5151]

I finally got my wireless to work. I used the 64-bit drivers, but I didn't rename the files. When I renamed them to match the files in the how-to it wouldn't work for me. I tried it again leaving the file names unchanged and it worked perfectly. Just thought I'd let everyone know.

[ubunturules]

dk5151: Thank you for telling us that. I've never had to deal with the 64bit drivers so I just assumed that you needed to name them to what it is in the how-to.

[gmanpsycho]

OK I'm good up until I have to enter


sudo rmmod bcm43xx

I get


ERROR: Module bcm43xx does not exist in /proc/modules](*,)

Not sure what's going on can anyone help me out?

All the other commands seem to work fine but I'm still not wireless yet...

[meander]

yup, worked beautifully for me
=D>

[Epperly]

nvm got it

[Epperly]

WTF, last time I tried to do this from another guide wlan was at least under "Networking", now it's not there :(
What'd I do?

[dk5151]

dk5151: Thank you for telling us that. I've never had to deal with the 64bit drivers so I just assumed that you needed to name them to what it is in the how-to.

No problem, I'm just glad I got it going so that I don't have to go back to Windows haha.

[chuckn]

This is a great tutorial. It worked on my compaq presario without a hitch.
Thanks for the help.

I do have a question. I have disabled ssid broadcast on my linksys router. The only way i can connect via wireless is to enable ssid. Is there a way I can connect w/o changing ssid?

[Epperly]

wow broadcom really needs to make linux drivers, cause this is ****in ******* me off... can't get htis **** to work on ubuntu so now Im trying SuSE in hopes of better support, and SuSE's installers sucks and takes forever...

UGGHHH I HATE THIS LAPTOP

[ripple]

did this HOWTO help anyone?

So far it has helped yes. Please help me a bit more. im a bnoob. So, my main problem is that eth1 is always my wlan card,.. when it is available. Something i did made it invisible. now i only have eth0. So can you help me get it back? When I did have it.. it never worked.. i could activate it but nothing happened after that. Also, in you final lines you posted that to solve the eth1 problem to put the Ndiswrapper into etc/??? .. what do yo mean by that.. i don't follow.. this keeps me from editing the file to change eth1 to wlan0

thanks in advance
Joeripple

[ubunturules]

for some reason a lot of people can't get wlan0 to show up under Networking. I don't know why. Make sure your hardware is present.

sudo ndiwrapper -l

also when I say put ndiswrapper in /etc/modules I mean do a:

sudo gedit /etc/modules
and add the word "ndiswrapper" to it without the quotations

if anyone else has any idea on why wlan0 isn't showing up under networking please tell me because that seems to be happening to a lot of people. The only reason I can think of that, that would happen would be that you installed an invalid driver and the hardware isn't present.

[Epperly]

for some reason a lot of people can't get wlan0 to show up under Networking. I don't know why. Make sure your hardware is present.

sudo ndiwrapper -l

also when I say put ndiswrapper in /etc/modules I mean do a:

sudo gedit /etc/modules
and add the word "ndiswrapper" to it without the quotations

if anyone else has any idea on why wlan0 isn't showing up under networking please tell me because that seems to be happening to a lot of people. The only reason I can think of that, that would happen would be that you installed an invalid driver and the hardware isn't present.
That's what made me give up on Linux on my laptop...

[BGreet]

Hey everyone. So basically I had my broadcom working in Ubuntu with FWcutter initially, but it then randomly crapped out and I have no more wireless connection. I decided I would use ndiswrapper, and everything seems to go off without a hitch (I did exactly as the tutorial said). Ndiswrapper installs the driver, and states the driver and hardware are both present, however, the wireless light does not come on, and it appears that the hardware isn't even installed after modprobing. Any ideas on what could be wrong? I'm at the point where I'm seriously contemplating just going back to windows.. I really need this wireless to work for school. :/

[ilikewhenthingswork]

hw-tph ftw

thanks so much for those 64 bit drivers

everything works great now

[em0maha]

Thank you soo much.
I have tried multiple Howtos and this one is the only one that has worked so far.
Anyone with a Presario 2100, try this first.

[WeeGraeme]

I've followed this how to and it's been a help to me. I haven't actually got wireless networking working, but as a result of following everyone's suggestions, I have got eth1 changed to wlan0.

When I was installing, everything worked except for network manager. When I ran nm-applet the terminal seemed to freeze, and no icon appears on the top panel.

Are there any ways to tweak network manager? I don't know what it's unhappy about. Please type slowly if you reply because I've only been playing with Ubuntu / Linux for about 4 days.

[uph0ria]

Hey,

I was able to get my card working with the help of your tutorial, thank you.:D

[ubunturules]

WeeGraeme: These commands will help diagnose the problem.

sudo killall NetworkManager

sudo NetworkManager --no-daemon

Tell me what errors are coming up when you run this.

[WeeGraeme]

I'll have to revisit this later. Due to needing to use the laptop again, I was forced to change back to Windows. I'll have another look at Ubuntu at the end of semester.

Thanks to everyone who has offered suggestions. Even without a full understanding of how to drive Ubuntu, I had already grown to like some features and I miss them already. I've just found that I don't quite have enough time to spend to get it working properly just yet.

[filloy]

Everything worked fine, i got an IP addres, internet was working great, but suddenly, after reboot, my eth1 (the wireless) stopped working. Any idea on why ??? im back at the same point where I started, except now im more dessperated because i know it works :s

Please, someone help me !!

[ubunturules]

What is the problem? What exactly doesn't work? I understand the wireless in general but what do you think the problem is?

[filloy]

Intresting...
I read your post and decided to write the answer.
When analyzing what could be the problem, i found out that i installed the Automatix Bleeder, software which changed my sources.list and downloaded some software, like another version of Ndiswrapper.
And that was it, i recovered the old ndiswrapper, stopped everything and started it again, and now its working again...lets hope this one last for more than 2 hours.

In any way, thank you very much for your attention :), i am really thankfull...

Good bye

[DW5]

Great howto. I lost my harddrive a week ago on my hp nx9010 w/ Broadcom 4303 and had a go at fwcutter with absolutely no luck. This worked right through. However, I was worried that I didn't have the network manager icon I had been used to. I thought it wasn't installing right. But when I unplugged my network cable, it popped right up.

Thanks for the hard work.

[Paul133]

I have a Dell 1200 witha Dell 1350 Mini-PCI or PCMCIA wireless card (Broadcom 4306 (rev03) chipset). Will your instructions work with this?

[Paul133]

How do you save the inf file?

[Paul133]

I figured everything out!!! Thank you so much! Now I can use Ubuntu for everything! This is the best How-To I've seen. Now, Ubuntu is perfect, almost out of the box! Thanks again, you certainly save me a lot of time looking through other How-To's! Granted, I'm not an average computer user, but the support on the forums and these guides will help to make Ubuntu more accessible to the average computer user!

[jwhitlark]

Thank you very much for your howto. I've lots of linux experience in other areas, but never managed to get this card working. Now every computer in my house runs ubuntu. (All 6 of them \\:D/ )

[erusan]

I've been having this problem ever since Flight 4 (-ish), but when I try to load the ndiswrapper module, I get a segmentation fault. It shows the driver and hardware as being present, I have the .sys file in the same directory as the .inf file, etc. It all works fine until I do the modprobe, and then I'm stuck.

Ideas? Help?

[francisco tovar]

hello I am new in linux, this is my first time I write, I have just instaled ubuntu 64 on a amd turion 64 (network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4318 [AirForce One 54g] 802.11g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 02)).
Everything is OK except the wireless conection,

I tried to follow your tip, but have a problem...

when I put
sudo modprobe ndiswrapper

I get:


FATAL: Error inserting ndiswrapper (/lib/modules/2.6.15-26-amd64-gener ic/kernel/drivers/net/ndiswrapper/ndiswrapper.ko): Invalid argument

do you know what can I do?
thank you
francisco

[kamil]

Same problem as the poster above me, invalid argument after sudo modprobe ndiswrapper :(

[WarAngel]

After following this HOWTO, I have finally been able to get network-manager to display wireless networks in the area. I am still having a problem though; network manager tries to connect to the open network ('linksys') for about a minute, and then it simply stops trying. This is driving me nuts because I am so close to connecting, yet so far away. Any ideas on how to get my laptop to connect to the network now that I can see it?

Thanks in advance!

[erusan]

Does the network have WEP or Mac address filtering enabled?

[EvilRusk]

Thanks for this guide! I had to help somebody install their wifi over the phone (lol!) and it all worked out fine. Used the guide for my Netgear WG311v3 also (ammending chipset names/drivers where necessary).

[Paul133]

It helped me a lot. Thanks, it's the best guide I've seen; better than those using the cutter.

[davidrose_98]

I just want to say thank you for the great instructions. I am currently posting this on my wireless laptop with a Broadcom 4306.

I just have on suggestion. Either link to the wiki or go into more detail about the gnome-network-manager. I installed this after realizing that I could not connect at home (WEP) but only on an open network. But after installing this, i only could see my wired network card in the applet and not my wireless card. It wasn't until I read into the wiki to comment out (put # in front of) everything in the /etc/network/interfaces file except for the stuff that has to do with lo, because this is required for the loopback adapter, as well as add "ndiswrapper" (no quotes) to /etc/modules to be loaded on boot, since this will not load without a wireless interface present, that I was able to get the network manager to detect my wireless network.

Thanks again!!

[GlennB]

Hi,


This is the easiest way to get your Broadcom 4306 wireless card working in the shortest amount of time. I wouldn't use the firmware cutter because I've heard a lot of stories of people only being able to run at 11 Mbps with it. With ndiswrapper you will get 54 Mbps if your router will allow it.

Do everything in order as it is listed.

This all worked fine for me, until I rebooted (I suspect restarting networking might have shown the same problems). After following the HOWTO by the book, I got wireless access straight away (Dell Inspiron 1300, Broadcom BCM 4318 ). However after the reboot, things turned pear shaped :(

Gnome-panel crashed repeatedly, and restarting it just brought the crash back. Both the wired and wireless networking interfaces also failed completely, leaving me with no net connection. I eventually traced it to problems with the 'identity' of the wireless card.

Removing the fix below solved the problem, but left me in the situation where network manager no longer sees any network connections, as the wireless card is now 'eth1' instead of 'wlan0'. I still have a working wireless connection, though.


Totoro found a fix for the eth1 problem. Thank you Totoro.
add ndiswrapper to /etc/modules
change eth1 -> wlan0 in the files below:
sudo gedit /etc/modeprobe.d/ndiswrapper
sudo gedit /etc/network/interface
sudo gedit /etc/iftab

I hope this helps a lot of people!

It certainly helped me! Thanks for the good work. Now I just need to revisit the problem with network manager, and see if I can get things changed so that the 802.11g card is seen as 'wlan0'.

If anyone can explain why replacing eth1 with wlan0 in the above three files screws my system, I'm all ears!

Thanks and regards,

Glenn.

[ubunturules]

davidrose_98: obviously you didn't read the whole guide because if you did you would of seen that's also apart of my guide.

[GlennB]

ok, I understand now why I was not able to get the network manager working. I was not aware that nm does not deal with static ip addressing, and since I have DHCP disabled here, it seems I can't use it.

However, for anyone else that has a Broadcom card and uses static ip, be aware that this guide works just fine in Dapper, provided you don't try to use network manager.

My Broadcom 4318 is now seen by Ubuntu as 'eth1' and it's working just fine.

Thanks again for a good howto.

Regards,

Glenn.

[yani1shu]

I followed the guide step by step and am getting this error message. Any help would be appreciated. I am working on a Dell Inspiron 1150 with a BCM4306 wireless card.


sudo modprobe ndiswrapper
FATAL: Error inserting ndiswrapper (/lib/modules/2.6.15-26-386/kernel/drivers/net/ndiswrapper/ndiswrapper.ko): Invalid argument

[Melcar]

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

That's the chip I have on my laptop. This guide worked perfectly at the very first try. Works even better than doing it the bcm43xx way; I can actually reconnet every time I loose signals (I used to have to reboot before with fwcutter). Important thing is to follow the guide from begining to end step by step or you will get errors (I used to get the invalid driver error before).

[ubunturules]

yani1shu: I've had this problem before and I've seen a couple of other people saying they've had this problem. I've searched on google and can't seem to find a fix. Somebody said they did the following to get it fixed.

sudo ndiswrapper -e ndiswrapper.ko

sudo modprobe ndiswrapper
This not the guides fault.
I am still looking for a good fix.

[davidrose_98]

davidrose_98: obviously you didn't read the whole guide because if you did you would of seen that's also apart of my guide.

I did read the whole guide, numerous times, and you are right, adding the ndiswrapper to /etc/modules is in there, but.... if you don't comment out the auto stuff that has to do with the wlan and the wired lan the gnome-network-manager will not display your network cards because it does not display anything that is loaded via auto in that file (at least that is what the wiki said and that is what I found when I could not get it to display on my pc).

[Hemmer]

Fantastic Guide! Cannot thank you enough for helping get this working!!! :D

[saionjik]

wow im also running a ubuntu 64, and im really mad that i've done what is said under http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=201902
When i do it with the 64bit drivers, i leave them alone w/o changing the names, and it seems to show hardware present and driver present, when i do "sudo ndiswrapper -l"

But everytime i follow the guild but do it with my drivers,
"
sudo rmmod bcm43xx
sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
# i add "blacklist bcm43xx" to the bottom
# instead of "sudo apt-get install ndiswrapper-utils" i put in the cd and install the ndiswrapper 1.8 from the cd on my 64 bit ubuntu

sudo ndiswrapper -i ~/folder where driver is/bcmwl5.inf
# i've noticed if i dont put my 64bit drivers close to my /home/ folder (for example "/home/(username)/PUT DRIVERS HERE") I get a line 135 error, so i put "sudo ndiswrapper -i /path to drivers/driver.inf" and terminal installs it while spitting out this code:
Forcing parameter IBSSGMODEL 0 to IBSSGMODEL 2
Forcing parameter IBSSGMODEL 0 to IBSSGMODEL 2
Forcing parameter IBSSGMODEL 0 to IBSSGMODEL 2
Forcing parameter IBSSGMODEL 0 to IBSSGMODEL 2
Forcing parameter IBSSGMODEL 0 to IBSSGMODEL 2
Forcing parameter IBSSGMODEL 0 to IBSSGMODEL 2
Forcing parameter IBSSGMODEL 0 to IBSSGMODEL 2

sudo ndiswrapper -l (tells me hardware and drivers present)
sudo ndiswrapper -m
sudo modprobe ndiswrapper

I then go to System -> Administration -> Networking and all i see is modem, eth0, eth1 and my OLD eth2 which was my wireless one with the option to input a ESSID name when i click configure disapears and im like WTF!?, so i then go through all these files and change eth2 to wlan0.

"add ndiswrapper to /etc/modules
change eth1 -> wlan0 in the files below:
sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/ndiswrapper
sudo gedit /etc/network/interfaces
sudo gedit /etc/iftab"

I dont have a passworded network so i dont do what else the tutorial says, and i've havent put # in front of the auto, Im just really mad cause i get stuck here and dont know what to do,
to check my eth's i type "sudo iwconfig" and it pops up the eth's and wlan0 but now everything it says that no device detected or w/e it is that its not there as opposed to when i typed "sudo iwconfig" before the tutorial i followed and "eth2" showed the linksys broadcom 4603 (rev 3). So if anyone could help me thx.

I heard some ppl also used gnome network w/e but i dont know how to get that. everything i try to get offa the http archive of ubutnu instead of "apt-get" command for my 64BIT tells me that it doesnt support "lib6*YATTAYATTAYATTA*" or i386 when its not downloaded for the 64 bit. and if it does say its supported like the FWCUTTER for bcm43xx i press unpack/install and it says failed install, then i try the newer one and it says the unsupported lib6 thing.

[ubunturules]

So what's the problem?

[hirev]

I was trying this guide today and everything went smooth,except untill I got to this step



Go to System -> Administration -> Networking

Go to your eth0 connection and disable the connection.

Now go to your wlan0 connection and enable it.

If you need WPA or WEP encryption do the following:

When I go to the Network settings menu, my Wireless connection disappeared from the list, I cannot continue any further with this guide because i don't have a wlan0 connection to enable.
Any help would be appreciated.

thanks in advance

[ubunturules]

Here's a little trick of the trade. It might work and it might not work.

sudo ndiswrapper -e bcmwl5

sudo apt-get install ndisgtk

sudo ndisgtk

click Install New Driver
find the driver and click install

once it says driver present, hardware present click on Configure Network
it should work

If it doesn't work keep repeating these steps until it does.

If you don't mind I would like to here back from you to see if it works or not. Just a little trick I picked up when I couldn't get wlan0 to show up.

[hirev]

Thak you for your feedback.
This is what i get when i try your suggestions.


ctr@RS-R3600:~$ sudo ndiswrapper -e bcmwl5
Password:
ctr@RS-R3600:~$ sudo apt-get install ndisgtk
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
E: Couldn't find package ndisgtk
ctr@RS-R3600:~$ sudo ndisgtk
sudo: ndisgtk: command not found
ctr@RS-R3600:~$ sudo ndisgtk
sudo: ndisgtk: command not found
ctr@RS-R3600:~$ sudo apt-get install ndisgtk
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
E: Couldn't find package ndisgtk
ctr@RS-R3600:~$ sudo ndiswrapper -i /home/ctr/bcmwl5.inf
Installing bcmwl5
Forcing parameter IBSSGMode|0 to IBSSGMode|2
Forcing parameter IBSSGMode|0 to IBSSGMode|2
Forcing parameter IBSSGMode|0 to IBSSGMode|2
Forcing parameter IBSSGMode|0 to IBSSGMode|2
Forcing parameter IBSSGMode|0 to IBSSGMode|2
Forcing parameter IBSSGMode|0 to IBSSGMode|2
Forcing parameter IBSSGMode|0 to IBSSGMode|2
Forcing parameter IBSSGMode|0 to IBSSGMode|2
Forcing parameter IBSSGMode|0 to IBSSGMode|2
Forcing parameter IBSSGMode|0 to IBSSGMode|2
Forcing parameter IBSSGMode|0 to IBSSGMode|2
Forcing parameter IBSSGMode|0 to IBSSGMode|2
Forcing parameter IBSSGMode|0 to IBSSGMode|2
Forcing parameter IBSSGMode|0 to IBSSGMode|2
ctr@RS-R3600:~$ ndiswrapper -l
Installed ndis drivers:
bcmwl5 driver present, hardware present

I still can't get the Wirelss to show up in the Network settings.
any clues?
thanks

[Epperly]

I was trying this guide today and everything went smooth,except untill I got to this step



When I go to the Network settings menu, my Wireless connection disappeared from the list, I cannot continue any further with this guide because i don't have a wlan0 connection to enable.
Any help would be appreciated.

thanks in advance

My problem still, too.

[Papa-san]

Is it specifically wireless, or is it because wlan0 isn't the name?

I am using the same card, and I don't have wlan) either. I have eth0 and eth1. Sys > Admin > Network gives me the wireless, but it says it is eth0. I decided not to fight it, and it is running as that. If the wireless issue doesn't show at all, I'm not sure.

The how to you are using isn't the same as the one in my signature. try those, and see if they help.

Best of luck!

[Papa-san]

Well I'm using the bcm43xx kernel (2.6.17ck1) module on Archlinux but I tried to get it (Broadcom 4318 + ndiswrapper) to work a long time ago. About 2 months to be exact and it didn't work at all but everything it fine now.

I think this is specific to the 4318 cards. 4306 is a slightly different animal.
BTW, this thread helped me after my upgrade problem, but left me with the eth1 problem you addressed in your edit. I will try these things in the morning! Thanks MUCH!!!

[hirev]

Is it specifically wireless, or is it because wlan0 isn't the name?

I am using the same card, and I don't have wlan) either. I have eth0 and eth1. Sys > Admin > Network gives me the wireless, but it says it is eth0. I decided not to fight it, and it is running as that. If the wireless issue doesn't show at all, I'm not sure.

The how to you are using isn't the same as the one in my signature. try those, and see if they help.

Best of luck!

It is the Wireless connection that is missing from the Network settings.
I have tried a couple of other guides, but I return with a bunch of errors.

Thank you!

[Blumensaadt]

:-?
Well i've tried this "how to" since its my first time of running a linux-system.
And, err, well - it doesn't work for me. Now ALL my networkconnections i dead, even the Wire-LAN.

Obviously i can make wintendo work for me - sad but true, so i'm not sure to use linux before there's a working solution that's easy to use for people like me who doens't know how linux works.

I need the wireless connection, and ubuntu sadly don't provide this feature for my Ferrari3200.

Blumensaadt.

[sirkamran32]

Hey everybody, i followed the HOW TO, step by step. However, in the end, my internet is still not working. I do not get a wlan0 interface to select and activate. I only have eth0, which doesnt work. What do I do? Everything works until, the "wlan0" is supposed to appear. I've been troubleshooting this for hours, finally found this thread, and still not luck! I am extremely frustrated, and i just want to get linux to work, so i can switch over!!! ANY HELP IS GREATLY APPRECIATED!! THANKS IN ADVANCE!! sigh, its late at night. bye.

[Kulgan]

Very interesting and well explained how-to!

I got a kick when I saw it - it's exacly what I'm looking for for a desktop that I want over to ubuntu.

Thanks so much for including that ndiswrapper-utils was on the CD - I have been to thousands of ndiswrapper how-to's and they all just say apt-get or synaptic.

First problem I had occured when actualliy installing the driver, which is farther than I have ever gotten before :D

You said we need to have both an .inf and a .sys file. I have the .sys file from c:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\BCMWL5.SYS, but I have no idea where the other one could be. Any ideas?

Thanks for doing a great how-to on the broadcom driver of doom, even if I'm too stupid to find the right files!

E

[ubunturules]

sirkamran32: Try what I said on the last page of this howto. It might work. It's a little trick I picked up back in the day.

Kulgan: I am glad you like the howto. Go to home.nc.rr.com/thehinnants/stuff/drivers and both of them are there.
For the .inf file, copy and paste it in some form of text editor and make sure you save it as bcmwl5.inf
Make sure you have both of them in the same folder too.

[Fully216]

I use the netbc564 (amd 64bit bcm4306 driver). You may find it here:

http://ubuntuforums.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=186&d=1104423377

You can also use the windows driver found here:

http://www.linuxant.com/driverloader/drivers.php

Hope this helps

[trifgabi]

Hi

I'm so new i don't even know how to post a message. I have ubuntu installed on an external usb drive. it works just fine till the wireless card. I have a n inspiron 1505 with the internal wireless card on it. i tried installing the bcmwl with ndiswrapper 1.8 but unsuccesful. then i downloaded ndisgkt and installed the driver with that. it said, hardware is present. the card still doesn't want to work. the wi-fi light is on though, it always was.network controller Broadcom corporation unknown device 4311 when I type lspci

i really need some help, tired to boot windows

[jubilee33]

Thank you for the wonderful howto. I have never been so close to getting my wireless connection to work. Everything well smoothly and the nm-applet (wlan0) already connected and the icon changed into bars. 100% strength, all connected but I can't load any web pages. It seems that the router sees the laptop and the laptop sees the router but there is no actual Internet connection. By the way, I can't use System-->Administration-->Networking to connect wlan0. Any idea what might be wrong? I have seen other people having the same problem but haven't seen any solution. :confused:

[aezell]

I read the entire thread and still no luck.

I followed the tutorial to the T.

"ndiswrapper -l" gives me a good response.

All of the files and folders that should be around are there.

I changed all the references of eth1 to wlan0 per Tortoro's suggestion.

The Wireless connection shows up in my Networking list.

However, when I "Activate" it, it seems to be thinking and then it will tell me that it is activated, but there is really no connection. If I close the applet and start it again, it reports the connection as deactivated.

The wired connection works fine and can be activated and deactivated at will.

Any ideas? I have checked and double-checked every step. I should mention that this is a VERY fresh install.

[Kulgan]

have you set the correct DNS servers under the DNS tab? Always worth a try double checking :D

[aezell]

Well, since the wireless device never truly activates, I doubt it's the DNS. It's also a DHCP environement meaning the router would provide that at connection time. Since the wired connection works, the DNS servers are set and working. :)

[Kulgan]

hmmm.. I had a weird issue when I was setting up my laptop, though it could be the same with whatever you are working with. I set the properties in the interface "properties" tab... DUH, -> OK -> OK, without activating it, then opened it, switched the location to the one I saved the settings to - in my case "home" - clicked activate and then did not close with OK. Just exit it with the lovely little cross. Even now that I have an internet connection working, I still have to open up the network settings, change location, etc every time I boot. The OK button seems to remove the settings. Probably won't work though as it is incredibly random.

[ubunturules]

What is in your /etc/network/interfaces?

[aezell]

I actually fixed it, but I am now on Fedora Core. The issue seemed to be related to needing a more updated version of ndiswrapper than what is available via yum. I just had to build the latest version for myself and that seemed to fix the issue.

[ubunturules]

Glad to here you got it working.

[Brokennails]

Thank you! This worked like a champ. I had tried ndiswrapper when I installed Suse 10.1 and could not get it to work.... I decided to give Ubuntu a try and am glad I did. Tons faster and I can finally use my Belkin fd57010.


Again thanks.

[nrayever]

let's see if this works

[chuckn]

This is a great forum. I am having trouble getting my wireless up and running after a fresh install.

I'm getting the following--

chuck@chuck-laptop:~$ sudo ndiswrapper -i ~/bcmwl5.inf
bcmwl5 is already installed. Use -e to remove it
chuck@chuck-laptop:~$ bcmwl5.inf -e
bash: bcmwl5.inf: command not found
chuck@chuck-laptop:~$ bcmwl5 -e
bash: bcmwl5: command not found

What am i doing wrong?

Thanks

[Brokennails]

try :
ndiswrapper -e bcmwl5

That will remove the bcmwl5 inf.

I found that it is easier to do this from a fresh install... make sure ndiswrapper and gcc is installed also.

[nrayever]

holy cow!!! this howto was pretty easy, and works like a charm!! :D :D :D

[keno]

thanks for this tutorial. it is great. i was able to get my wireless up and running without a hitch, and i'm a fresh windows convert.

i do have a situation though. after fixing this from the cd boot, i have decided to go ahead with the install. now this time around i am having trouble getting this up like i did before.

i just installed ndiswrapper. my first attempt at installing the driver was met with this:

my code:

sudo ndiswrapper -i ~/tmp/startup/bcmwl5.inf


Installing bcmwl5
couldn't copy /home/kyle/tmp/startup/bcmwl5.inf at usr/sbin/ndiswrapper line 135

now when i try to install it somewhere else it says it is already installed.

but when i run:

ndiswrapper -l

i get:

Installed ndis drivers:
bcmwl5 invalid driver!

i was not sure where to place the driver files....so maybe that is the issue? i am at a loss here. please help.

[keno]

nevermind. i just looked up a couple to see how to uninstall, and now i got it.

one quick question though. i have it up and running now on eth1...do i have to change it to wlan0? or is the difference purely cosmetic?

thanks...

[seismicmike]

my wireless isn't showing up as wlan0, it's showing up as eth1 and the light on the card is not on

[ubunturules]

If you have your ethernet cord plugged into your computer, unplug it, and then restart your computer.

[azidrane]

Works like a charm (with only a few differences for my system, but they are all different so what they heck)

Thanks for the guide and the link for the correct drivers. Kudo's to you!

[azidrane]

Also, make sure you enable the eth1 connection inside of network manager.
1. Disable the eth0 card
2. Select the eth1 card and then select properties
3. Click on "Enable this connection"
4. Set the "Configuration" box to "DHCP" (presuming that is what your router will be using)
5. Click on ok.
6. Select your eth1 card again and select "Activate"
7. Should be smooth sailing now!

[Kulgan]

I have an odd quirk. After I have activated the card I have to close the window with the cross rather than OK. Stumped me a little in the beginning to find out that this was the problem, but now it is indeed smooth sailing :p

[whitegorilla]

I used this method quite successfully with dapper and then something went wrong. Not sure what, but wireless no longers works. I did a fresh install and it just didn't work. I get the nm applet and wireless is active in the network settings but I get no signal.
Anyway, I decided I would give Kubuntu Edgy Eft a try (as I had not tried any Kubuntu distro's before) and I quite like it. Now I know it's beta, but I've read on these forums that ubuntu edgy now works with this broadcom card. What I was wondering is if anyone here has kubuntu edgy working with the 4306 card and how they did it?

Thanks

[Kulgan]

I would say that since they support it, the procedure would be similar to any old other card - I have an intel.

presuming your wireless is under eth0 and you use dhcp with wep:


$ sudo nano /etc/network/interfaces


edit under eth0 to look like



auto eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp
wireless-essid home
wireless-key <essid, eg 123456789ABCDE. Don't use quotes.>


exit and save (ctrl-x -> y -> enter)

then refresh the connection



$ ifdown -a
$ ifup -a


and you should be working. At least, that's the way it works for me :P

Let us know if you have any problems!

-K

[whitegorilla]

Thanks I'll give that a go when I get home tonight.

[method_lam]

network manager was installed, but when i type nm-applet nothing happens.

i followed everything perfectly til the wep key part with network manager.

[whitegorilla]

I would say that since they support it, the procedure would be similar to any old other card - I have an intel.

presuming your wireless is under eth0 and you use dhcp with wep:


$ sudo nano /etc/network/interfaces


edit under eth0 to look like



auto eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp
wireless-essid home
wireless-key A35D121C0AE4F8D33D210EEDC1


exit and save (ctrl-x -> y -> enter)

then refresh the connection



$ ifdown -a
$ ifup -a


and you should be working. At least, that's the way it works for me :P

Let us know if you have any problems!

-K

Having followed the above I now see my wireless card in my network settings. My ethernet card is enabled and the wireless card is disabled. So I disable my ethernet card but for some reason I can't enable my wireless card. It ticks over for a while, a green tick displays for about a second and then it returns to disabled status.
Should I be enabling it from the Konsole?

[Kulgan]

Would say to all that the network manager is not the best thing to enable the broadcom card in. If you have installed the driver with ndiswrapper, all you should have to do is enter your information in /etc/network/interfaces and reload all interfaces.

whitegorilla: did you change eth0 to the right interface for you? In many cases it's eth1. Did you have to create the file, or was it there already?

method_lam

network manager was installed, but when i type nm-applet nothing happens.

i followed everything perfectly til the wep key part with network manager.
I take it you are on ubuntu, rather than kubuntu? I found that for the how-to, you didn't really need the last few steps unless you wanted a graphical thingy as well. I blacklisted as they do there, installed the driver with ndiswrapper, and did as I said earlier, with editing the /etc/network/interfaces file.

If you really want to use a manager, try just using the normal "Network settings" box in System -> Administration -> Network. Just when you close it after your wireless interface has supposedly activated, don't use the "ok" button; close it just by exiting.

[whitegorilla]

whitegorilla: did you change eth0 to the right interface for you? In many cases it's eth1. Did you have to create the file, or was it there already?


Not really sure what you mean. I'm pretty sure it was eth0 for ethernet and eth1 for wireless. I followed the instructions at the start of this thread and then what you said earlier, so I'm not aware of creating the file :confused:

I'm going home now so I'll be able to be more specific, hopefully!

Thanks

[ubunturules]

method_lam: run these 2 commands and tell me what you get.

sudo killall NetworkManager
sudo NetworkManager --no-daemon

[jw824]

I am having the same issue as several other users have been having with the wireless not showing up in System>Administration>Networking. When I run ndiswrapper -l it shows the driver installed and hardware present. I don't want to do a clean install, any ideas would be greatly appricated.

[nyinge]

Edit: Try the following after you get your "ndiswrapper -l" showing "driver present" and "hardware present."

The simplest way that has always worked for me ;) :

-Make sure your router is broadcasting SSID.
-router security (WEP/WPA etc): OFF
- just to make life easier for now :)

Note: Don't forget "sudo" in front of these commands.

1) Insert the ndiswrapper module (if you havn't done so automatically at start up):

modprobe ndiswrapper

2) Searching your network: This should display your network, including others'.

iwlist wlan0 scan

3) Replace YOUR_SSID with your own. UPPER/lower cases matter!

iwconfig wlan0 essid YOUR_SSID

4)
dhclient wlan0 to get an address from your DHCP router.

If you're lazy like me, put the following in a file:


sudo modprobe ndiswrapper
sudo iwconfig wlan0 essid YOUR_SSID
sudo dhclient wlan0

And run it as
sudo sh home-wifi
"home-wifi" being the name of the file. See, just 3 simple lines. :KS

Ok, post back your results.

[jw824]

nyinge - that worked great.... I am now going to try it with wep encryption and see if i can get that to work.

Thanks again

Got it working with the wep too.

[ubunturules]

nm sorry

[ubunturules]

bump

[RangerNT]

sudo apt-get install ndiswrapper-utils


I do this and get the following error (after entering password):


Reading package lists...Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information...Done
E: Couldn't find package ndiswrapper-utils

Any suggestions? I'm using Ubuntu 6.10 and a newbie to Ubuntu but experienced in Unix/Linux

[Kulgan]

well, the reason that you want this package is presumably that you don't have an internet connection. By default, Ubuntu comes with certain reopsitories disabled, and you can't enable these without an internet connection. If you stick the Ubuntu CD in the comp when it's running Ubuntu, there should be a file somewhere on it called ndiswrapper-utils.deb or something. Just double-click that and it should ask you about an installation. Go along with it and ndiswrapper-utils should be installed on the system.

-K

[ubunturules]

kulgan is right.

[RangerNT]

My ethernet card is working fine on the laptop and I'm on the Internet now replying to this post so it can't be because I don't have an Internet connection.

[Kulgan]

you could have been using windows to post this, you could have been using wired when you wanted wireless. That's normally why people want ndiswrapper, and you didn't exactly give a different reason...

-K

[accel]

I just did a fresh install of ubuntu 6.10 on my laptop and now I get this error message.
(see below)
Is this because the procedure in post 1 only works for Dapper.
How can I get my Broadcom 4306 (Linksys WPC-54G pcmcia) to do its work
in Edgy?

----------------
ndiswrapper -l
Installed ndis drivers:
bcmwl5 driver present, hardware present

sudo ndiswrapper -m
Adding "alias wlan0 ndiswrapper" to /etc/modprobe.d/ndiswrapper

sudo modprobe ndiswrapper
FATAL: Error inserting ndiswrapper (/lib/modules/2.6.17-10-generic/kernel/drivers/net/ndiswrapper/ndiswrapper.ko): Invalid argument
-----------------

[ubunturules]

accel: This howto is for every version of Ubuntu. I have seen your problem before and I've heard of a couple of people who get this error. The bad thing is I haven't heard of a good fix for it. Sorry. Does anybody know how to fix this problem. Do another fresh install and it should work.

[accel]

Does anybody know how to fix this problem. Do another fresh install and it should work.

Thanks for your reply.
I think I found a fix for my own problem in this thread :) :
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=284746

As iseebluuue writes here:

He first did this step:
sudo modprobe ndiswrapper

and then he did:
sudo ndiswrapper -m

NOT first sudo ndiswrapper -m and then sudo modprobe ndiswrapper

ALSO make sure you download the ndiswrapper-utils v1.8 (or higher) from the repositories and do not use those located on your install CD.

Why this works I don't know, but this does the trick for me.

Now my Linksys WPC-54G works fine @ full speed in Edgy...

[ubunturules]

That is great. Thanks for the fix.

[meyrd]

Thank-you..........:)

It worked and it worked fast.

I sent you a pm with kudos as well!

Compaq r3000 with bcm4306
and it ALL works now, even my mlan with wep128.

Ubuntu is the best and the people who lurk around in this forum are the best as well!

:cool:

[Handssolow]

Eventually I managed an install of Edgy on another PC, now I need some help installing the driver for its Linksys WMP54GS with Broadcom 4306 chipset.

Initially I had a problem finding or accessing ndiswrapper on my install CD but I downloaded and used a memory stick to transfer and install ndiswrapper.
Synaptic now reports I've installed

ndiswrapper-common installed given as 1.18-lubuntu2
ndiswrapper-source installed given as 1.18-lubuntu2
ndiswrapper-utils installed given as 1.1-5
ndiswrapper-utils-1.1 installed given as 1.1-5
ndiswrapper-utils-1.8 installed given as 1.18-lubuntu2

I downloaded the Linksys drivers for my ver 1.1 card. The Driver folder has
WMP54GSa.inf
bcml5a.sys
WMP54GS.inf
bcmwl5.sys
I transfered and copied bcmwl5.sys to the other PCs Desktop and copied and renamed WMP54GS.inf file to bcmwl5.inf.

sudo ndiswrapper -i /Desktop/bcmwl5.inf gives the following line-

couldn't copy/Desktop/bcmwl5.inf at /usr/sbin/ndiswrapper-1.8 line 144

I tried the sys and inf files from home.nc.rr.com/thehinnants/stuff/drivers/
but get the same error message when attempting to install this alternative bcmwl5.inf file.
Sudo ndiswrapper -l says my driver is invalid so I have to remove remove it and start again.....

Helpful suggestions appreciated.

[Handssolow]

I started to re-read these posting.
Thanks to "Ubunturules" a suggestion came that loading the graphical interface for ndiswrapper might work.

sudo apt-get install ndisgtk
sudo ndisgtk

But first I had to use my other PC to obtain it. I googled for it, downloaded and transfered it using a memory stick onto Desktop and double clicked to install. Then back to the terminal commands to input the above. I did get however, something like this as a warning-

(ndisgtk:16408): libgnomeeufs-WARNING**. Failure to open session DBUS connection:Did not receive a reply.Possible causes indicate;the remote application did not reply,the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.
Volume monitoring will not work.

However over the top the graphical configuration appeared. I navigated to a folder on Desktop where bcmwl5.inf was and was able to install the driver.
sudo ndiswrapper -l reported the driver with no message of it being invalid.
sudo iwconfig shows I've got a wlan as does the network settings program.

I've made some progress.

Why did I have to use the gui to get ndiswrapper to install bcmwl5.inf?
Is there any significance in the warning messages when I ran ndisgtk?

PS I didn't mean to add any smilies but can't remove them!!

[Handssolow]

Posting from our second PC running Ubuntu at last!!:)

I just went into sudo /etc/network/interfaces and used the network settings gui partly because I'd forgotten our ESSID was in caps not lower case.

I've only got to sort out the ATI 9600 graphics driver, the Cannon BJ-300 printer and having a dual HD windows PC, and also installing Kubuntu. Oh happy days.

[Kulgan]

good job!

Sounds like you're having fun :D

[motang]

Thank you very much it worked beautifully and it was extremely easy to use.

[ubunturules]

I'm glad to hear that you got it to work! Just curious...how long have you been working on it before you got to my guide?

[Epperly]

Thank you!! :D I'm so happy it's finally working!

[javierfh]

Hello Ubunturules and others,

i have a SMC2835W card and im trying to make my wireless work.
I have followed your post and well it doesnt work, it is little bit frustrating, so i hope someone can give me some help.
I have found the smc2835w v.2 wireless cardbus adapter driver multiple os and download it.
I have installed ndiswrapper and the driver...everything seemed fine and at some point i saw even the lights flashing couple of times.
These are the things i did



javier@laptoplinux:~/drivers_wlan/SMC2835W$ sudo ndiswrapper -i /home/javier/drivers_wlan/SMC2835W/SMC2835W.inf
Installing smc2835w
javier@laptoplinux:~/drivers_wlan/SMC2835W$ ndiswrapper -l
Installed drivers:
smc2835w driver installed, hardware present
javier@laptoplinux:~/drivers_wlan/SMC2835W$ sudo ndiswrapper -m
Adding "alias wlan0 ndiswrapper" to /etc/modprobe.d/ndiswrapper
javier@laptoplinux:~/drivers_wlan/SMC2835W$ sudo modprobe ndiswrapper


And well after that rebooted and nothing worked.
I then followed the different things you commented in this post and well i have the icon and i can try to switch between wireless and cable network.. but only thing is that nothing happens when i select wireless and after few seconds starts the ui showing the icon moving and then says you are connected to the network(the cable)

So any idea how can i force the card to be alive?
is there anything i could do?

I know maybe you have different cards but if anyone happens to know??


Thanks in advance,

Javi

[ubunturules]

I don't really understand the question but if you have your ethernet cable still plugged in unplug it and restart your computer.

[javierfh]

I don't really understand the question but if you have your ethernet cable still plugged in unplug it and restart your computer.

That doesnt work. I have tried it already.
The problem seem to be with the card, i cant make it work.
Everything else seems to be fine. But funny thing is that same card works perfectly under windows,so card should work fine.
So is there anyway to enable the card so the lights start flashing?
The driver and everything seem to be in place..so i dont understand why still doesnt work.

Javi

[Kulgan]

someone earlier in the thread said that it worked for him to switch around the two commands after installing the driver, making it



javier@laptoplinux:~/drivers_wlan/SMC2835W$ sudo modprobe ndiswrapper
javier@laptoplinux:~/drivers_wlan/SMC2835W$ sudo ndiswrapper -m


That makes absolutely no sense, but that seemed to work. You never know...

[javierfh]

someone earlier in the thread said that it worked for him to switch around the two commands after installing the driver, making it



javier@laptoplinux:~/drivers_wlan/SMC2835W$ sudo modprobe ndiswrapper
javier@laptoplinux:~/drivers_wlan/SMC2835W$ sudo ndiswrapper -m


That makes absolutely no sense, but that seemed to work. You never know...

Hello,

well...didnt work... :D i tried...but didnt work, to be honest im desperated with that thing.

Javi

[Kulgan]

well, I really am sorry to hear that. :-k

I have no idea either - but then I'm not excatly what you call a pro...

[GMUDuckman]

First off... thank you ubunturules and everyone else on this thread! My wireless WAS working like a charm after i did this tutorial! HOWEVER, my wireless no longer works. I'm pretty sure i know the incident that made it stop working and I'm positive I have no idea why it happened or what to do about it. The wireless stopped working after I plugged my computer in to the internet via ethernet port at work. Ever since then I have been unable to connect to wireless again. The closest I get is the little orb at the bottom of nm-applet turns green. Please someone help me. I know you all are whizzes! Help me out! If I don't figure this out I might have to go back to windows :-( on my laptop.

I am using ndiswrapper 1.8 (thats the only way I was able to get it working)

-Marc

[Kulgan]

tried editing /etc/network/interfaces rather than doing it from the applet?

as far as I know that should do it so long as there is a WEP involved...

[RaYdOg]

I transfered and copied bcmwl5.sys to the other PCs Desktop and copied and renamed WMP54GS.inf file to bcmwl5.inf.

sudo ndiswrapper -i /Desktop/bcmwl5.inf gives the following line-

couldn't copy/Desktop/bcmwl5.inf at /usr/sbin/ndiswrapper-1.8 line 144


Shouldn't that command be:
sudo ndiswrapper -i ~/Desktop/bcmwl5.inf
NOTE: The tilde before Desktop, because Desktop is in your home directory. I may be wrong, I am kinda new to Linux.

[Kulgan]

oh right, well spotted!

/Desktop would mean that you had a folder in the top directory called Desktop... Might help](*,)

[GMUDuckman]

tried editing /etc/network/interfaces rather than doing it from the applet?

as far as I know that should do it so long as there is a WEP involved...

The networks I'm trying to connect to are not secured.... Everything was working fine until i connected VIA ethernet... then something went screwy. So i'm sad.](*,) :(

Edit: I dunno if is has anything to do with anything... when checked the version of NDISwrapper. It was 1.22... I used 1.18 to get my wireless working. But i wouldnt think getting a NEWER version of the program would mess things up...

[ubunturules]

Alright it shouldn't be that hard to diagnose the problem.

First post your /etc/network/interfaces:


sudo gedit /etc/network/interfaces

Second run these commands:


sudo killall NetworkManager


sudo NetworkManager --no-daemon

tell me what the output of those that command gives you.

[GMUDuckman]

My interfaces looks no different than it did before

# This file describes the network interfaces available on your system
# and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5).

# The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

Then when i did you commands

marc@marc:~$ sudo NetworkManager --no-daemon
NetworkManager: <information> starting...
NetworkManager: <information> wlan0: Device is fully-supported using driver 'ndiswrapper'.
NetworkManager: <information> nm_device_init(): waiting for device's worker thread to start
NetworkManager: <information> nm_device_init(): device's worker thread started, continuing.
NetworkManager: <information> Now managing wireless (802.11) device 'wlan0'.
NetworkManager: <information> Deactivating device wlan0.
NetworkManager: <information> eth0: Device is fully-supported using driver 'natsemi'.
NetworkManager: <information> nm_device_init(): waiting for device's worker thread to start
NetworkManager: <information> nm_device_init(): device's worker thread started, continuing.
NetworkManager: <information> Now managing wired Ethernet (802.3) device 'eth0'.
NetworkManager: <information> Deactivating device eth0.
NetworkManager: <information> Updating allowed wireless network lists.


And it just stopped there so i tried connecting to a wireless netowork
and that output was way to long to post... so i attached it... hope it works.

you might have to get rid of the bz2 ending... i had to figure out how to get past the file size limit.](*,)

[GMUDuckman]

Any ideas anyone? I've been searching and searching and nothing](*,)