WLAN newbie question (Airport cards, ndiswrapper, etc.)

**JoeyJoeJoe** · 11-20-2006, 02:35 AM

I have an SMC USB WLAN adapter that, according to my resarch on ndiswrapper, should work. I haven't tried it yet (though I hope the experience is less painful than setting up resolution settings for my MacMini's integrated Intel graphics card)

The reason I have not tried it is because I saw here, that someone has created reverse-engineered drivers for the Broadcom chip. This would allow for my Airport Extreme card to work with Linux. That would be cool.

The link above says that the Broadcom driver "was included into the Linux kernel since 2.6.17-rc2".

I have FC6 and my kernel version is 2.6.18-1.2849.fc6.

So, if I have a more recent kernel, where is the driver and how do I make it recognize the Airport card?

If using the Airport card in Linux is not feasible, have you guys had success with ndiswrapper?

Thanks,
JJJ

**Compunuts** · 11-20-2006, 02:44 AM

Originally Posted by JoeyJoeJoe

If using the Airport card in Linux is not feasible, have you guys had success with ndiswrapper?

Yeap. I followed this and it worked.

We had a PET about this but it didn't get carry over to this site after merging with LJR. I hadn't had time to re-write it either.

<note-to-self>
add to todo list === ndiswrapper pet
</note-to-self>

**Kernel_Killer** · 11-20-2006, 04:46 AM

Here's my blog entry of my Powerbook journey, and I added the part about getting my Airport Extreme working. I ended up using the bcm43xx-fwcutter from the package repository, and worked out great.

**redhead** · 11-20-2006, 06:23 PM

The link above says that the Broadcom driver "was included into the Linux kernel since 2.6.17-rc2".
I have FC6 and my kernel version is 2.6.18-1.2849.fc6.
So, if I have a more recent kernel, where is the driver and how do I make it recognize the Airport card?

Well it needs to be enabled in the kernel, I doubt FC6 ships with it build, I recently stumbled onto it by accident, I was hacking the kernel source, to get in-kernel support for the Ralink driver, what you need to enable in your kernel is

CONFIG_PCI
CONFIG_IEEE80211
CONFIG_IEEE80211_SOFTMAC
CONFIG_NET_RADIO
CONFIG_ EXPERIMENTAL

Then the choice to enable the bcm43xx driver under "Device drivers" -> "Network device support" -> "Wireless LAN (non-hamradio)"

But as I said, this will most probably require you to build your own kernel...

**Kernel_Killer** · 11-20-2006, 09:29 PM

I never even had to touch my kernel to get my airport running. It just recognized it from a default install of FC6. I can't remember, did you say this was a PPC or x86 Mac Mini?

**JoeyJoeJoe** · 11-20-2006, 09:39 PM

x86 (Intel DuoCore)

**Kernel_Killer** · 11-20-2006, 10:19 PM

I guess that would be a reason not to have it in your kernel by default. Does the Network Administration application show it at all?

In GNOME it's System -> Adminitration -> Network

**JoeyJoeJoe** · 11-20-2006, 11:34 PM

Negative, just shows the built-in wired NIC.

(I'd insert an image, but Firefox is looking for an http:// link and not from local filesystem)

**Compunuts** · 11-21-2006, 01:10 AM

Originally Posted by JoeyJoeJoe

(I'd insert an image, but Firefox is looking for an http:// link and not from local filesystem)

The forum doesn't allow image uploading. You will have to upload the image to a web host somewhere and link it through here. I normally upload it to my web server, then gave the link as http://www.myhost.com/image-file .

**JoeyJoeJoe** · 11-26-2006, 04:44 PM

Hi. I ran pirut and pulled down bcm43xx-fwcutter and followed the instructions in your blog, pulling the AppleAirport2.kext file over on USB driver, but when I got to running fwcutter I got this error.

(Recall that this is an Intel Duo Core Mac Mini)

[root@localhost MacOS]# bcm43xx-fwcutter AppleAirPort2
Sorry, the input file is either wrong or not supported by bcm43xx-fwcutter.
This file has an unknown MD5sum bba92f4ff32a9b5628be3960dcce157d.