Ndiswrapper Dell Inspiron 1520 BCM4328

Lantay77 · #1 11th May 2008, 02:12 PM

Im new to linux and i cant get my wifi to work on my dell inspiron 1520 with BCM4328 wireless card.

I installed ndiswrapper using linva repo

Code:

yum install ndiswrapper

I installed the dell driver into ndiswrapper

Code:

http://ftp.us.dell.com/network/R151519.EXE

lspci output

Code:

0c:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4328 802.11a/b/g/n (rev 03)

ndiswrapper -l

Code:

bcmwl5 : driver installed
        device (14E4:4328) present (alternate driver: ssb)

iwconfig output

Code:

lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

sit0      no wireless extensions.

Please help me, i have done everything i read on forums. It wont work, the network config does not list ndiswrapper.

bbfuller · #2 11th May 2008, 02:43 PM

Hello Lantay77

I don't know about the 4328 for certain, but have you completed all of the steps listed in my quote below:

Quote:

This is the generic instruction set for installing your windows driver with ndiswrapper:

Acquire full root rights with:

Code:

su -

That's a space and a minus sign after the su. It gives full root rights over the machine, not just over your own environment which is what you get with plain su.

Code:

ndiswrapper -i <path to your windows driver file>.inf

should install the driver,

Code:

ndiswrapper -l

if it is going to work should return "hardware present"

Code:

modprobe ndiswrapper

should load the driver into the kernel, but probably only until you reboot.

If you are lucky now and NetworkManager is running then after a short while it 'may' begin reporting wireless networks. NetworkManager is the preferred method of connecting to wireless networks with Fedora and should be located on the top Gnome Panel to the right in the notification area.

If it's not there, "Gnome System Menu - Administration - Services" will give you the opportunity to start it, set it to start at boot time and save the changes.

If it works, or indeed if it doesn't you will also need to run:

Code:

ndiswrapper -ma

and then edit the file:

Quote:

/etc/modprobe.conf

as root and add the line:

Code:

alias wlan0 ndiswrapper

to it.

With that all in place, reboot the computer to get the alias recognised and open "Gnome System Menu - Administration - Network", highlight your wlan0 entry, click "Edit" and make sure now that it is set NOT to "Activate device when computer starts" but that if it is there, "Controlled by NetworkManager" is ticked. That last item will only be in place if your machine is currently fairly up to date.

Reboot and try connecting again.

If you have problems during that process I'll be looking for questions.

I appreciate that you have done the parts up to "ndiswrapper -l", but some of the other instructions are specific to ndiswrapper in Fedora.

Lantay77 · #3 11th May 2008, 03:08 PM

I can scan for acess points now, thanks allot! But I cant connect to mine. I think its probably because it has wpa enabled.

bbfuller · #4 11th May 2008, 03:22 PM

Hello Lantay77

I should have said earlier, "Welcome to the Forum".

It's small consolation to you I'm sure, but that has been my experience with ndiswrapper and NetworkManager/WPA.

I'm lucky enough to have a 4306 and a 4318 broadcom card to play with and they are both supported by the native Linux b43 driver. They both connect to my WPA access point without any trouble.

Unfortunately you can't use that driver. The b43 site is explicit that it doesn't support the 4328.

I've made a small partition on the machine that has the 4306 card for a Fedora 8 installation using ndiswrapper to control the card, and while I can get it to connect easily to open access points or WEP protected access points I have never had any success with those protected by WPA.

There are some posts around where people have forgone NetworkManager and used scripts to control their card and wpa-supplicant directly, that might be worth investigating if only to see if it is an ndiswrapper problem or a NetworkManager problem.

Lantay77 · #5 11th May 2008, 04:27 PM

ok, thanks for all your help

bbfuller · #6 11th May 2008, 05:22 PM

Hello Lantay77

With Fedora 9 due to be released early next week, you might want to try with that. It has a newer version of NetworkManager than has made it into Fedora 8 yet.

I also imagine that version of NM will filter down into Fedora 7 in the next few weeks.

earthwormgaz · #7 19th May 2008, 11:34 PM

Does any of this work on F9?

I have the new Macbook Pro (Penryn), which has the same Wireless setup, and I can't get these instructions to work

bbfuller · #8 19th May 2008, 11:42 PM

Hello earthwormgaz

I've not actually had the chance to try it but I can't see any reason why it won't.

Where did you get your ndiswrapper from and at what stage do the notes fail?

earthwormgaz · #9 20th May 2008, 10:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bbfuller

Hello earthwormgaz

I've not actually had the chance to try it but I can't see any reason why it won't.

Where did you get your ndiswrapper from and at what stage do the notes fail?

Well,

ndiswrapper -l

Does say something along the lines of "hardware present", something like "broadcom blah blah present", which is pretty much the same thing.

However, modprobe never got my wireless working, I can't see wlan0 after running it. iwconfig complains it can't find wlan0 too.

bbfuller · #10 20th May 2008, 11:04 AM

Hello earthwormgaz

Well, with a broadcom card, you might not even require ndiswrapper or you might need to go through a few more steps.

Are you sure you actually have a broadcom 4328? Using the command:

Code:

/sbin/lspci

from a terminal should tell us about that.

If you are set on using ndiswrapper then we will need a whole lot more information to have a chance of diagnosing any problem than you have given.

The full steps for configuring ndiswrapper after install are in post#8. How far along have you got with those?

If you acquire full root control over your computer with:

Code:

su -

in a terminal window - the space and minus sign after the su are very important - what does the output of:

Code:

iwconfig

and

Code:

iwlist wlan0 scan

show?

earthwormgaz · #11 20th May 2008, 06:11 PM

[root@whitedragon ~]# dmesg | grep ndiswrapper
ndiswrapper version 1.52 loaded (smp=yes, preempt=no)
ndiswrapper (link_pe_images:576): fixing KI_USER_SHARED_DATA address in the driver
ndiswrapper: driver bcmwl5 (Broadcom,10/12/2006, 4.100.15.5) loaded
ndiswrapper (NdisWriteErrorLogEntry:191): log: C000138D, count: 1, return_address: ffffffff880d0a5e
ndiswrapper (NdisWriteErrorLogEntry:194): code: 0x10b
ndiswrapper (mp_init:216): couldn't initialize device: C0000001
ndiswrapper (pnp_start_device:439): Windows driver couldn't initialize the device (C0000001)
ndiswrapper (mp_halt:259): device ffff81007d035700 is not initialized - not halting
ndiswrapper: device eth%d removed
ndiswrapper: probe of 0000:0b:00.0 failed with error -22
usbcore: registered new interface driver ndiswrapper

earthwormgaz · #12 20th May 2008, 06:14 PM

0b:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4328 802.11a/b/g/n (rev 05)

That's from lspci, I didn't run the other commands, because I think that output from dmesg means they won't work. I've tried to follow all the steps and this is the situation I find myself in