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This howto would help you to get Wi-Fi card working on Dell Inspiron 1501 laptop with ndiswrapper driver on Ubuntu. It was tested by me on Ubuntu Feisty.

1. Delete previous appearances of ndiswrapper in your system:
   sudo rmmod ndiswrapper
sudo apt-get remove ndiswrapper-utils
sudo gnome-search-tool
   (type “ndiswrapper”, select “Look in folder” as “/” and press “Find” as it’s shown at the screenshot, select ALL found items and Move them to Trash [right click on selected items])
2. Run again:
   sudo rmmod ndiswrapper
sudo apt-get remove ndiswrapper-utils
3. Get necessary packages:
   sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install build-essential
sudo apt-get install linux-headers-`uname -r`
4. Get ndiswrapper:
   wget http://dfn.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/ndiswrapper/ndiswrapper-1.47.tar.gz
5. Get the Windows driver for your Dell 1501:
   wget http://ftp.us.dell.com/network/R140747.EXE
6. Make folder:
   mkdir /home/YOUR_LOGIN_NAME/.drivers
7. Now we will move ndiswrapper and R140747.EXE to the folder we just made:
   mv /home/YOUR LOGIN NAME/ndiswrapper-1.47.tar.gz /home/YOUR LOGIN NAME/.drivers
   and
   mv /home/YOUR LOGIN NAME/R140747.EXE /home/YOUR LOGIN NAME/.drivers
8. Uncompress the ndiswrapper:
   cd /home/YOUR LOGIN NAME/.drivers
   and
   tar -xzvf ndiswrapper-1.47.tar.gz
9. Blacklist the broken and useless bcm43xx firmware drivers that try to load in a default Ubuntu install:
   sudo echo blacklist bcm43xx >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
10. YOU MUST REBOOT NOW!
11. Point your terminal to the ndiswrapper-1.47 folder.
    cd /home/YOUR LOGIN NAME/.drivers/ndiswrapper-1.47
12. Compile ndiswrapper:
    sudo make uninstall
sudo make
sudo make install
13. Use the Windows driver with ndiswrapper to get wifi working:
    cd /home/YOUR LOGIN NAME/.drivers
unzip -a R140747.EXE
cd /home/YOUR LOGIN NAME/.drivers/DRIVER
sudo ndiswrapper -i bcmwl5.inf
sudo ndiswrapper -l
sudo ndiswrapper -m
sudo modprobe ndiswrapper
14. YOU MUST REBOOT NOW!
15. Test Wi-Fi:
    Wi-Fi light on your laptop should be illuminated, if not you can always turn it off and on with the Fn+F2 (Function & F2 Key). Try running this to see if your wireless card is functioning properly.
    sudo iwlist scanning

Please note: don’t forget to change YOUR LOGIN NAME with your login name!