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.
- 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])
- Run again:
sudo rmmod ndiswrapper
sudo apt-get remove ndiswrapper-utils - Get necessary packages:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install build-essential
sudo apt-get install linux-headers-`uname -r` - Get ndiswrapper:
wget
- Get the Windows driver for your Dell 1501:
wget http://ftp.us.dell.com/network/R140747.EXE
- Make folder:
mkdir /home/YOUR_LOGIN_NAME/.drivers
- 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
andmv /home/YOUR LOGIN NAME/R140747.EXE /home/YOUR LOGIN NAME/.drivers
- Uncompress the ndiswrapper:
cd /home/YOUR LOGIN NAME/.drivers
andtar -xzvf ndiswrapper-1.47.tar.gz
- 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
- YOU MUST REBOOT NOW!
- Point your terminal to the ndiswrapper-1.47 folder.
cd /home/YOUR LOGIN NAME/.drivers/ndiswrapper-1.47
- Compile ndiswrapper:
sudo make uninstall
sudo make
sudo make install - 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.infsudo ndiswrapper -l
sudo ndiswrapper -m
sudo modprobe ndiswrapper - YOU MUST REBOOT NOW!
- 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! 🙂
Have tried to install wifi on dell 1501 laptop & have made it to step 6 and no farther. I an clueless on this. Using Limux Mint 8, 64 bit, so far it has been easy and time consuming.
Any ideas???
Thanks.