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First off, hi. This is my first post, and I'm afraid I'm a total newbie to Linux, so please go easy on me!
The problem I'm having is this - ...
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- 01-02-2007 #1Just Joined!
- Join Date
- Jan 2007
- Location
- Merseyside, UK
- Posts
- 6
Cannot connect wireless in DSL
First off, hi. This is my first post, and I'm afraid I'm a total newbie to Linux, so please go easy on me!

The problem I'm having is this - I'm trying out the live CD of damnsmalllinux on my desktop PC, and I can't get connected to my wireless network to save my life.
I have a Belkin PCI adapter, the CD drivers folder contains bcmwl5.inf and bcmwl5.sys. After I eventually figured out how to mount the cd (told you I was a newbie) I got the .inf installed through ndiswrapper (sorry don't know the version, whichever one comes with DSL) - ndiswrapper -l gives "bcmwl5 driver installed, hardware present" and I am led to believe this is good.
However when I put the SID (which I presume is the same thing as the SSID) and WEP in to ndiswrapper, it comes up with "connection failed". The device is wlan0.
I've tried to point the "inf file" to the .sys too, but that says "invalid driver" and then I can't remove it with the ndiswrapper -e for some reason. I've tried the wlanconfig and lwconfig tools without success (or knowing what they are).
The card definitely works, though in device manager on W*ndows (is that word allowed here?) it says the driver is bcmlw6.sys and not 5 if that's in any way relevant. I can also get a direct connection through ethernet so there's nothing wrong there either.
I can't figure it out. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Cheers, Dave
- 01-03-2007 #2Just Joined!
- Join Date
- Jan 2007
- Location
- Merseyside, UK
- Posts
- 6
Somehow, I've fixed it and I am now typing this from DSL on a wireless PC!

The network was listed under iwlist wlan0 scan so I realised it must have been something wrong with the config rather than the software. I booted back into Windows, changed the encryption from ASCII to HEX, changed the channel ID and went back to Linux, and it's worked first time.
I'm now feeling so proud of myself that I'm going to have another beer...


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