Belkin F5d7001 Installation - The Solution

Many thanks to all the advice available here about how to install this card. I have spent a very long time reading many suggestions, and have at last succeeded in getting it working. So I am now happy to contribute my notes on how to do it. I'm a beginner at Linux myself so the instructions are written to help beginners.

Perhaps there is somewhere else these could be posted as a reference? If so please go ahead and copy them where they will do most good.

If they don't work for you, or are wrong, or you can improve these instructions, that would be great. Here they are:

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Suse Linux - Wireless network

Belkin PCI wireless card F5D7001, Suse 10.2, Gnome. Installation using ndiswrapper.

The first two steps assume the availability of a machine running Windows.
1. Obtain the Windows XP compatible drivers for the card. Download them from www.belkin.com. Search for F5D7001 and under Software and Updates go to download the drivers. The file is called F5D7001_1212.exe

2. Open this file in WinZip and extract all three files from the folder files\drivers\winxp2k
They are called bcm43xx.cat bcmwl5.inf and bcmwl5.sys
Copy these to a floppy disk or CDROM so that they can easily be copied into the Linux machine (or put them anywhere where they can be copied under Linux).

3. Install the card in the machine.

4. Start Linux. Open a virtual console, e.g. using Ctrl+Alt+F2. Login and then enter the command:
su -
This gives superuser privileges. The virtual console is used to enter all the commands.
Use Ctrl+Alt+F7 to return to the GUI as required.

5. Use the command:
lspci -vt
This should list the device as Broadcom Corporation, BCM4306.

6. Run Yast, which is under Control Center. Click on Network Devices. Use Network Manager. Do not configure the Broadcom device, instead leave it unconfigured. Press Add and create a new device. Set to Wireless. Set the module name to ndiswrapper. Set the ESSID to match the ESSID of the router. At this stage it is easiest to set no encryption, and configure the router to turn off encryption.

7. Run Yast and use Software/Software Management to install additional software. This requires the Linux distribution disk. Install the rpm package called ndiswrapper. This will also install ndiswrapper-kmp-default.

8. Use the cd command to go to the folder /etc
Create a folder under /etc called belkinF5D7001
Copy the three driver files into the new folder.

9. Use this command to install the new drivers in ndiswrapper:
ndiswrapper -i /etc/belkinF5D7001/bcmwl5.inf

10. Create the configuration for modprobe using this command:
ndiswrapper -m

11. Check that ndiswrapper is configured correctly using this command:
ndiswrapper -l
This should report that the bcmwl5 driver is present and the hardware is present.
If other drivers need to be removed use:
ndiswrapper -e drivername

12. Add ndiswrapper as a module to the kernel:
modprobe ndiswrapper

13. Run Yast, and use the /etc/sysconfig editor. Go to System, Kernel, MODULES_LOADED_ON_BOOT, and add ndiswrapper.

14. Check the network configuration
Use the command:
ifconfig
This should show all network interfaces. In my case eth0 is an ethernet card and eth1 is the wireless card.
Use the command:
iwconfig
This should show the wireless interface.

15. Use the cd command to go to /etc/modprobe.d
Use the vi editor to add a line to the file called blacklist in this folder, blacklisting the Linux supplied driver, which is called bcm43xx.
The commands needed are:
vi blacklist
Move the cursor to the start of a line.
i (insert mode)
blacklist bcm43xx (type the extra line)
Esc (press the Esc key to come out of insert mode)
:wq (write the file out and exit)

16. Reboot. When Linux is running it will no longer have the bcm43xx driver, but will be running ndiswrapper.

17. The Network Manager icon should appear in the toolbar at the bottom right. Use this to select the network to use, either wired or wireless.

18. To scan for wireless networks and check their ESSIDs, channels and signal strengths, use this command:
iwlist eth1 scan
where eth1 is the name of the wireless interface.

19. Once everything is working, turn on encryption on the router.
Use Yast to configure the wireless card for the matching encryption, and the Network Manager may also request the passphrase. It may offer to store it in a keyring, which can be given its own password.

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Thanks for this advice, it will come in useful . I'd just like to add though that it's a shame Suse doesn't support this wireless network card natively without ndiswrapper. The reason I say this is because it *should* be able to. If you try the MEPIS Live CD for example, it autodetects this wireless network card and is able to use it straightaway. Suse makes things confusing by detecting it, but not being able to use it. So you have to in effect remove that detection and override it with ndiswrapper. Which is a bit of shame. Hopefully it'll work out of the box in the next version of suse.
Thanks once again for this advice!

Hopefully it'll work out of the box in the next version of suse.
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Don't assume that it will. The nice thing about Linux is that you have control over what bugs get attention and Bugzilla is the right tool to use when you encounter one.

http://en.opensuse.org/Submitting_Bug_Reports