Try this, as root in a terminal, to install driver.
ndiswrapper -i /home/user/ndiswrapper/driver/mcmwl5.inf
Then, to list installed driver.
ndiswrapper -l
If all is well, you will see something along the lines of:
Driver present
Hardware present
If the driver and hardware are installed use ndiswrapper -m to write configuration for modprobe.
Then use modprobe ndiswrapper to load ndiswrapper module.

Hello riona,

i have ubuntu running on my laptop as well so i know what your problem is atm , you can follow my guide that i will post below these lines, it should get it started , if it doesnt just send me a mail and ill try to help you the best i can :)

what the poster above here says isnt really relevant for you since you use ubuntu , use Sudo instead of going to a root shell , its what ubuntu uses instead of a root terminal.

the problem you where having (at least what i see here) is the wrong line :

4 - here is my error :root@ubuntu:~# ndiswrapper -d/home/user/ndiswrapper/driver/mcmwl5.inf

it should be sudo ndiswrapper -i /home/user/ndiswrapper/driver/mclw5.inf
also after ndiswrapper is installed you can just go to the directory where the driver is and then type sudo ndiswrapper -i inffile.inf.


The Wireless Lan card

To get the Wlan working we are gonna install a wrapper to handle the windows drivers for the card. install Ndiswrapper by putting the following command in the terminal :

sudo apt-get install ndiswrapper-utils

it will say that the ndiswrapper is installed , now we are gonna be needing those 2 files i named above so if you havent downloaded them yet get them from the urls below :

wget http://biginoz.free.fr/linux/bcmwl5.sys
wget http://biginoz.free.fr/linux/bcmwl5a.inf

now go to the folder where you downloaded the .sys and the .inf to, in the terminal type this :

sudo ndiswrapper -i bcmwl5a.inf (or the driver that your inspiron needs)

the driver should install without any problems, to check if it was installed ok type :

ndiswrapper -l

it should give 1 error and 1 succesfull message (the message should be something like this below)

Installed ndis drivers: bcmwl5a driver present, hardware present

To start the module type :

sudo ndiswrapper

To let Ubuntu find the Wlan card type :

sudo modprobe ndiswrapper

afterwards you type the following line to make sure that the wlan card will be started when you boot linux :

sudo ndiswrapper -m

mmm, i havent come across that problem yet , i use a Wep key and that doesnt give me any problems.

what error do you get when you type the ndiswrapper -m ?
did you get an actual line working ? or you cannot even ping hosts at all etc ?

when you activate the wlan0 card check if you get an ip from your router and if so can you ping the router from it or browse another pc using the wireless? (that way we can see if its a router problem in this case with the wpa or still the card that is buggy)

No errors when doing ndiswrapper -m
Here is the results when I attempted to do a ping:
lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:1431 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:1431 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:129015 (125.9 KiB) TX bytes:129015 (125.9 KiB)

myname@ubuntu:~$ iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

sit0 no wireless extensions.

wlan0 IEEE 802.11g ESSID:"NETGEAR"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.462 GHz Access Point: 00:0F:B5:6F:E6:F8
Bit Rate:54 Mb/s Tx-Power:25 dBm
RTS thr:2347 B Fragment thr:2346 B
Power Management:off
Link Quality:100/100 Signal level:-67 dBm Noise level:-256 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0
iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

sit0 no wireless extensions.

wlan0 IEEE 802.11g ESSID:"NETGEAR"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.462 GHz Access Point: 00:0F:B5:6F:E6:F8
Bit Rate:54 Mb/s Tx-Power:25 dBm
RTS thr:2347 B Fragment thr:2346 B
Power Management:off
Link Quality:100/100 Signal level:-73 dBm Noise level:-256 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0



PING 192.168.1.103 (192.168.1.103) 56(84) bytes of data.
From 192.168.1.102 icmp_seq=1 Destination Host Unreachable
From 192.168.1.102 icmp_seq=2 Destination Host Unreachable

ping results are from ubuntu:
I get the same results if I run a ping on my xp machine.
Ok this doesn't make sense. the 192.168.1.102 is the ip address of the wired connection for ubuntu. eth0.
I'm thinking if i can get the 192.168.1.102 switch over to wlan0 maybe i'll be able to get a webpage.
I'll try a few things then repost. If you have any ideas please post it thanks.

Wanted to add to my previous post. I redid everything and actually got the wireless connection to work . I am able to view webpages now. But my setting will not stay if i reboot they go away. The wireless connection is not using encyption at the moment.

 

Hello

I have followed this mini-tutorial, and I am having weird problems. After promping

~$ ndiswrapper -l

I got this message:

Installed ndis drivers:
bcmwl5a driver present, hardware present

Which as far as I know is telling me that everything is OK (I have the same message if I open the Windows Wireless Drivers from the system menu).

But I can not find my wireless card if checking "iwconfig" or opening the net management from the system menu.

?????

What else should I check?

Thank you, I am newbie in this Linux world, but this wireless question is troubling me too much, is the only device I have not been able to get work.

Regards

hey there

did you do these commands ?

To start the module type :

sudo ndiswrapper

To let Ubuntu find the Wlan card type :

sudo modprobe ndiswrapper

afterwards you type the following line to make sure that the wlan card will be started when you boot linux :

sudo ndiswrapper -m

after that it should become visable , what happens if you do these commands ?