USING NDISWRAPPER

Last updated: 26.7.06 11:45am

Using ndiswrapper is quite easy once you learn how. But learning how is the tricky part, this tutorial will attempt to explain the basics to you. Enjoy!

Step 1
Get the Windows driver CD in the PC and mount it. Browse to the directory it is mounted in and browse around looking for anything remotely like driver.inf, bcmwl5.inf, etc. There may be more than one, try them in any order. Stay in that directory.

Step 2
Type in a terminal:

ndiswrapper -i file.inf

ndiswrapper -l

This should produce either a list, or just one entry. Somewhere should be something like the name of your driver and "Driver Present, Hardware Present". For example, in MEPIS (where I am now), my output is:

Installed ndis drivers:
airplus driver present
bcmwl5 driver present, hardware present
lsbcmnds driver present
lstinds driver present
mrv8k51 driver present
netr33x driver present
prismnic driver present
wlanuig driver present
wlipnds driver present

As is evident, I am using a Broadcom Wireless 5 (or something like that) chipset. It is a Belkin card. If you do step 2 and it says "<YOUR_DRIVER_NAME> Driver Present", but not Hardware Present, then it is the wrong driver. Try another. If none of them work, ask the ultimate being for guidance (Google it).

If a driver doesn't work, type:

ndiswrapper -e <driver_name>

Where <driver_name> is what ndiswrapper calls it, NOT the filename.

Step 3
Once you have a working driver, use your systems config tools, this could be either the commandline wireless-tools package, YaST (SuSE uses this), MEPIS OS Centre (Mepis uses this), DSLPanel (DSL uses this), or something similar. Then send me an email telling me that it works. I hope this Tutorial helps as many people as possible.