Wireless Card BCM 4328 Problems.

[KJDanis]

Hello All,

I am having trouble installing the drivers for my wireless card. I have read other forums but still no luck.

I am very new to Fedora so baby steps would be nice

I have found the driver from the dell ftp site, and have downloaded it, I need to know how to install an exe file, if possible. i have a dell inspiron 9400 and the chipset BCM 4328

and i have installed ndiswrapper

Thanks for any help.

[bbfuller]

Hello KJDanis

Welcome to the forum.

Usually you can extract the files ndiswrapper requires from a Dell .exe with a command:

unzip -a  <name of dell exe> -d driver/

issue the command from within the folder you have the exe file and it should create a driver folder off it with the extracted files.

Post back if there are any problems with that or the actual use of ndiswrapper.

[KJDanis]

I am able to unzip the file run:
[root@KJDanis-Fedora9 ~]# ndiswrapper -i /home/Kevin/Desktop/Downloads .inf
install/manage Windows drivers for ndiswrapper

usage: ndiswrapper OPTION
-i inffile install driver described by 'inffile'
-a devid driver use installed 'driver' for 'devid' (dangerous)
-r driver remove 'driver'
-l list installed drivers
-m write configuration for modprobe
-ma write module alias configuration for all devices
-mi write module install configuration for all devices
-v report version information

where 'devid' is either PCIID or USBID of the form XXXX:XXXX,
as reported by 'lspci -n' or 'lsusb' for the card[/COLOR]

when i run ndiswrapper -l nothing happens.

if i run ndiswrapper -i inffile, it give an error.

[bbfuller]

Hello KJDanis

Good try, but not quite.

Let's say I had put a file from Dell in my Download folder and unzipped it.

I would expect to see in that Download folder a 'driver' folder.

In that driver folder I would see a lot of files - maybe even more folders depending on the complexity of the driver.

For my broadcom 4318 card I know the driver file I am looking for is bcmwl5.inf and let's say for illustration it is in the driver folder.

I would use the command:

ndiswrapper -i /home/bbfuller/Download/driver/bcmwl5.inf

Your challenge is to find the inf file in that package for your card. For broadcom it usually turns out to be bcmwl5 but sometimes bcmwl6 and to specify the full path to it.

Don't forget, file and folder names in Linux are case sensitive.

In case the instructions you are following don't mention it, Windows Vista drivers don't work with ndiswrapper, they must be Windows XP drivers.

[KJDanis]

OK, I found out the hard way that it was case sensitive LOL,

But now i know have the drivers installed, and the WIFI light on my laptop lights up

I set up the device in my network manager and rebooted, it shows the device as inactive, when i go to activate it, it cant find the ip information and asks if the cable is plugged in.

I think im close, just need the missing bit of information, Thanks for your help so far.

[KJDanis]

IT WORKS !!!!!!


Thanks for all your help.

I look forward to posting in the future.