ndiswrapper

What is it?
===========

Some wireless LAN vendors refuse to release hardware specifications or
drivers for their products for operating systems other than Microsoft
Windows. The ndiswrapper project makes it possible to use such
hardware with Linux by means of a loadable kernel module that "wraps
around" NDIS (Windows network driver API) drivers.

Status
======

Many chipsets work; see
http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/supported_chipsets.html
and
http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/List
for details.

Installation
============

See the INSTALL document for instruction on how to compile and install
ndiswrapper.

Upgrading
=========

Many things changed between 0.4 and 0.5 so if you are upgrading from
0.4 or earlier it's best to first remove the old installation and carefully
read the INSTALL document again!

Problems
========

Note that the project, despite being very usable already, is still in
its early development stages. Support for Linux userspace tools, such
as monitoring tools, is very limited.

Before sending bug reports, please check archives of mailing list and
public forum available at project home page:
http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net. Both these have search facility.
Follow the instructions below when sending a bug report:

   * Recompile with 'make DEBUG=<level>', where <level> is from 1 to 5;
   	 higher values for <level> produce more output.
	 Report dmesg output. Without this step, proper feedback may not be
	 possible.  Include details about your card, chipset (reported by lspci),
	 distribution, kernel version in the post.

   * Check if latest CVS works.

   * Use an alternate windows driver; see the 'Supported Cards' page on
     the project homepage for a driver that is known to work for your
     chipset. You may also find more information in the Wiki.
