Wireless in Gutsy Gibbon with Ndiswrapper

Back when the Dell 1501 first came out there were no native wireless drivers for the internal Broadcom chipset, so we had to use Nidiswrapper. NdisWrapper uses a wireless devices' Windows driver in Linux. It works surprisingly well. Using ndiswrapper allows you to run the Broadcom card in your Dell 1501 at full speed and connect to certain networks that the native Broadcom driver can't. You won't surf the internet faster but your PC to PC connections will be faster. If you are using the native Broadcom driver via the Restricted Driver Manager and it's working for all your day to day needs, I wouldn't recommend taking the time to change drivers.

If you have already enabled the Broadcom restricted driver, uninstall it before attempting this guide.

Go to System>Administration>Restricted Driver Manager and unselect the enable box.


Step 1: Get Needed Packages
To install ndiswrapper
In a terminal type:
sudo apt-get install ndiswrapper-utils-1.9 ndiswrapper-common

Get the Windows driver for your Dell 1501
In a terminal type:
wget http://ftp.us.dell.com/network/R140747.EXE

Step 2: Get Everything Ready
Now we will make a folder.
In a terminal type:
mkdir ~/.drivers

Now we will move R140747.EXE (the Dell driver), to the folder we just made.
In a terminal type:
mv ~/R140747.EXE ~/.drivers

Finally, we need to blacklist the broken and useless bcm43xx firmware drivers that try to load in a default Ubuntu install:
In a terminal type:
sudo su
Then type:
sudo echo blacklist bcm43xx >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

YOU MUST REBOOT NOW!
In a terminal type:
sudo reboot

STEP 3: Get The Proper Folder
In order for us to unzip the R140747.EXE driver we need to point your terminal to the /.driver folder.
cd ~/.drivers

Unzip the R140747.EXE driver
In a terminal type:
unzip -a R140747.EXE

We need to point your terminal to the DRIVER folder we just unzipped
In a terminal type:
cd ~/.drivers/DRIVER

Step 4: Configure the Windows driver with ndiswrapper
Now install the Windows driver
In a terminal type:
sudo ndiswrapper -i bcmwl5.inf
Then:
sudo ndiswrapper -l (that is a lowercase L)

You should see a message that says driver present, hardware detected.

Now finish installing the driver
In a terminal type:
sudo ndiswrapper -m
Then:
sudo modprobe ndiswrapper

YOU MUST REBOOT NOW!
In a terminal type:
sudo reboot

STEP 5: TEST WIRELESS
Your WiFi light on your laptop should be illuminated. If not, you can always turn it on and off with the Fn+F2 (Function & F2 Key) and you're all set! Try running this to see if your wireless card is functioning properly.

In a terminal type:
sudo iwlist scanning

If once you get everything working and after a reboot and the wifi light does not come back on, simply repeat Step 4 and wireless will work again.


Step 6: Make it Stick
To autostart the ndiswrapper module
In a terminal type:
sudo gedit /etc/modules

and add this to the end of the file
ndiswrapper

edited by pHreaksYcle