BCM4318 & ndiswrapper - SOLVED

[jbs1136]

I had Salix 13_64 installed on my Gateway laptop and had my wireless driver installed using ndiswrapper. I followed the wiki and updated to 13.1. Then I did dotnew and I think I let something get overwritten because I lost my internet connection. I thought I would take the easy way out and just install 13.1_32. The 64 doesn't help the laptop and I thought the wifi driver would be easier to install. The STA driver doesn't support my older card. I installed Salix 13.1_32 but I can't get my wifi to work. I used ndiswrapper and installed the Windows XP driver. I did rmmod ssb & b43 and then I did modprobe ndiswrapper. I get the message that the module ndiswrapper was not found. iwconfig shows no wireless extensions. I have rebooted a couple of times but it won't come up. Any suggestions

lspci shows 05:02.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4318 [AirForce One 54g] 802.11g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 02)

john

[caitlyn]

I remember reading that the ssb/b43 combo conflicts with ndiswrapper. You can only use one or the other. I would try blacklisting both b43 and ssb and make certain that ndiswrapper is explicitly loaded at boot. See if that works.

Disclaimer: I do not have a system with a 4318 chip so I have no way to test this theory.

[jbs1136]

Thanks, and you are correct. I have checked and they are both blacklisted. bcm43xx was already there and I had to add ssb. But I still can't get the module for ndiswrapper loaded.

Thanks,

john

[jbs1136]

using google I found some info on sourceforge.net about ndiswrapper. I know that this is the latest version that is installed but when I run modinfo ndiswrapper, ndiswrapper -v and -l I get this:

Code: Select all

root[john]# modinfo ndiswrapper
ERROR: modinfo: could not find module ndiswrapper
root[john]# ndiswrapper -v
ERROR: modinfo: could not find module ndiswrapper
module version is too old!
utils version: '1.9', utils version needed by module: '0'
module details:
ERROR: modinfo: could not find module ndiswrapper

You may need to upgrade driver and/or utils to latest versions available at
http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net
root[john]# ndiswrapper -l
bcmwl5 : driver installed
	device (14E4:4318) present (alternate driver: ssb)

I have uninstalled and reinstalled and this is what I get. Anyone able to help?

john

[jbs1136]

What I ended up doing after reading everything on sourceforge was to uninstall ndisgtk and ndiswrapper. Then I downloaded the .tar from slackbuilds.org and built the package, installed, downloaded and installed the .inf and .sys files from the sourceforge links and then rebooted. ran ifconfig wlan0 up, then iwconfig and wlan0 popped up and everything works fine. Wasn't hard after I did all of the reading.

I did mark this solved in the first post.

thanks,

john