Biggest headbraker of the month

[Phantom]

As some might have read in my previous posts I had a lot of trouble getting my broadcom wifi card to work in 2005LE.

 

Yesterday I decided to reinstall it all after messing around with settings and tools to get to learn Linux.

 

So there I go, format it all, reinstall, re-download Ndiswrapper, compile it and BANG, nothing works, no way to get the drivers loaded. I tried every way possible but nothing would help.

 

I reinstalled almost 30 times in 1 month, always followed the same procedure that worked to get my card working, never had any trouble, and now this.

 

So I reinstalled 2-3 times 2005LE thinking I might have done something wrong there, but nothing helped, at the end I remembered that the first time I got it to work was under Ubuntu, so I gave that a go and it worked.

Installed Ubunut, downloaded Ndiswrapper 1.2, compiled it, loaded the driver and voila, me have wifi.

 

So having got that to work I backed up the compiled directory on a USB drive just to make sure.

 

Not wanting to remain on Ubuntu 'cause I liked Mandriva, and I'm getting a boxed version + Club subscription next weekend, I decided to give 2005LE another go.

 

Reinstalled 2005LE, copied to Ndiswrapper directory from my USB drive, made a "make install", loaded the driver and voila it worked.

 

Try to understand that. So I checked the kernel version of the Ubuntu machine of my wife 2.5 compared to 2.6 on mandrake, that's where the difference is.

 

Ndiswrapper 1.2 doesn't work if you compile it on a 2.6 kernel, it needs to be compiled on a 2.5 kernel.

 

I've got my wifi working now, but man, this was one hell of a headbraker

[devries]

I doubt Ubuntu uses a 2.5 kernel. That was the testing series from way back before Ububtu even existed :). But it could have been a kernel problem. You're right about that.

[Phantom]

You're right, I cheked again and the version was 2.6.10-5-386 compared to Mandriva's version 2.6.11-6.

 

So the kernel version difference is even less.