HOWTO Ndiswrapper
From ZWHLUG
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[edit] About
I have a laptop and finally wanted to install ndiswrapper. Since ndiswrapper is still under development I thought I'd try the newest version, which is version 1.8. The version in my repository was 1.1 and I thought it was kind of old, too old for my taste.
[edit] Downloading
Let's start with downloading the current stable version of ndiswrapper at [their sourceforge site.] I would suggest you download it to any directory and then 'sudo' copy it to your /usr/src/ . Then we untar the package.
cd /usr/src/ sudo tar -xvzf [ndiswrapper-package-name].tar.gz
[edit] Installing
OK, before we can start check you have the right packages installed so you can compile programs. You will also need to build (not install) the current kernel source with the current kernel configuration. I have the 2.6.12-9-686 kernel. The linux kernel sources will be downloaded to /usr/src automatically.
sudo apt-get install linux-source-2.6.12 sudo tar -xvjf linux-source-2.6.12.tar.bz2 cd linux-source-2.6.12 sudo make menuconfig
Go to "Load an Alternate configuration file" and load your /boot/config-2.6.12-9-686 and then exit the configuration tool and 'save' the kernel configuration.
Note: To run the 'sudo make menuconfig' you will need to install the libncurses5-dev package
OK, now we need to make the current linux kernel source. This is neccesary otherwise you won't be able to build ndiswrapper!
make
Note: This might take a very long time to do. I suggest you have dinner or go to the bathroom. Another choice might be to let it run for a few minutes, then stop it with CTRL+C and continue with the HowTo.
[edit] Building Ndiswrapper
Now we go to the ndiswrapper directory and build it.
cd ../[ndiswrapper-package-name]/ sudo make distclean sudo make KSRC=/usr/src/linux-source-2.6.12 sudo make install
[edit] Use your Windows driver
Let's install the actual Windows driver for your WLAN card. Make sure you have it ready somewhere and go to the directory where it is located.
sudo ndiswrapper -i [driver-filename].inf
Check the status of your installed drivers.
ndiswrapper -l
If everything is installed correctly you should get some output like this:
Installed ndis drivers: bcmwl5 driver present, hardware present
[edit] Automatically creating wlan0
Now we will create an alias for wlan0 in the module configuration file so that this module is used whenever the wireless interface is started.
sudo ndiswrapper -m
[edit] Finishing up the installation
Modprobe will insert the module into the current running kernel.
sudo modprobe ndiswrapper
If you want the ndiswrapper module to be started every time automatically (I suggest you do this) you need to edit one more file. Just add "ndiswrapper" at the end of the file and save it.
sudo vim /etc/modules
