Windows drivers on Linux

[Michael Hipp]

Klaus-Peter Schrage wrote:

> Wil McGilvery wrote:
> 
>> Has anybody heard of this before and has anybody tried it?
>>
>> http://www.linuxant.com/driverloader/
>>
>> It appears to be a program that will allow you to run windows drivers 
>> on a Linux machine. I guest the advantage would be being able to use a 
>> product that doesn't have a native Linux driver.
> 
> 
> There seems to be a free alternative - which I haven't tried yet, 
> because I don't have a wireless card:
> http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/

I'm absolutely faint-dead-away amazed!

My cheapo HP Pavilion laptop has a cheapo Broadcom wireless g card which 
I figured would never work under Linux. But ndiswrapper did it. The 
steps (on Ubuntu) were:   (all done as root, of course)

1. apt-get install wireless-tools
      (actually this comes as part of the base install)
2. apt-get install ndiswrapper-utils
3. Make sure you have the latest stable Ubuntu kernel
      (2.6.8.1-4 in this case)
4. ndiswrapper -i bcmwl5.inf
      (this is the winders .inf file that installs the .sys driver)
5. modprobe ndiswrapper
6. Use the nifty Gnome gui tool to configure wlan0 and
    set it to DHCP
7. ifdown eth0
8. ifup wlan0
      (observe that it got an address from the AP)
9. ndiswrapper -m
      (to autoload it on boot)

This didn't work the first 4 times I tried, but that's because I didn't 
know that step #7 was needed. Best to set wlan0 to not activate on boot 
otherwise the bootup time can be near forever.

ndiswrapper is a hack, to be sure. But a darned useful one. Someday when 
the hardware manufacturers awaken from their coma it won't be needed.

Michael