Wireless networks and Linux…

They don’t appear to mix. I’ve spent 4 days now trying to get the Dell Wireless 1390 WLAN mini-card in a Dell Latitude D531 to work on Mandriva Linux 2008.0 I’ve been following one how-to but I keep hitting the same dead end of an error message. I can see why some critics say Linux just isn’t ready for consumers…

This is the how-to I’ve been following.

EDIT: I see this has been drawing a few users. If you have Mandriva, the following will tell you how to get it working:

How-to start:

1) This will only work if you have Mandriva 2008.1 (Spring)

2) Download the following driver package to a location on your computer.

3) Open the folder that you placed the exe in.

4) Open terminal from the Mandriva Menu

5) Type su

6) Enter your root password

7) Type cd followed by location of exe (example: /home/user/Drivers; It’s a good idea to make a new folder for the exe)

Type unzip -a R151517.exe

9) Wait for it to unzip

10) Type exit to quit terminal

11) Right click the network icon in the system tray and select “Configure network”

12) Enter root pass in the window

13) Select “Wireless” from the connection type

14) Select the ndiswrapper option

15) Select use windows driver.

16) Navigate to the folder you unzipped the drivers to.

15) Open the folder “DRIVER” and select “bcml5.inf”

16) If you get a warning saying already configured with bcm43xx, select the “Yes” option to override.

17) You should now have it configured. Restart and see if your WiFi light is on (If you have a switch or button make sure it’s on)

NOTE: This how-to I did from memory. Commands/prompts might be slightly different. No guarantee this works for you.