This part is for those who have installed Linux on a laptop, and need to install a wireless driver. If this is not you, then skip to the next section. First, understand that every time you update the kernel - which is what the whole operating system runs off of - you will have to recompile NdisWrapper. You will know if the kernel was updated by looking at one of a few different things: You will see it when you update with yum, listed as 'kernel'; you will see another boot option when starting the computer, it will still say fedora (or whatever distro you use) but the kernel version will be newer, with the option to boot the old one; your wireless doesn't work any more. If your wireless doesn't work any more it's safe to assume that the last time you updated, the kernel was updated. If you need to get to the internet to re-download/install NdisWrapper, but your wireless connection is your only way, then reboot, and boot with the previous kernel version. Now, you have two options: you can download and compile it, or you can install it with yum:

The concept of compiling something can sound daunting, i know it was intimidating to me when i was using Solaris (which lead me to using Fedora), but i never had anyone show me how simple it is either, so hang in for a sec - don't run off - it's easy. If you want to install it with yum because it's incredibly simple, that's fine, do that and skip to the part about configuring it. However i have had trouble getting the pre-packaged version to work, so i recommend you compile it. I also recommend you do this because you need to know how to compile things, and just how easy it is.

First get the latest release of NdisWrapper, download it to your desktop, right click, extract here. Next go to the driver list (note: this list seems to not exist any more; as a matter of fact, the whole ndis project seems to have taken a big shit. When i get more time i will update this article to show you how to use another program called wlassistant (yum -y install wlassistant) or mad_wifi) and download the correct driver for your laptop. If you do not see the same model, find one that's pretty close. If you can't find one that's very close, use your windows driver! This will be on your windows cd somewhere. If you can't find it, boot back into windows an load the cd and extract the driver to your desktop and put it on a cd or flash drive, then boot back into Linux. Now, wherever you got your driver from, put it on your desktop. If it's a .cab or .exe or something, rename the extension to .zip and 'extract here'. Look in the folder, you only need two things, the .inf and the .sys files, but not just any sys or inf files. Look for the one's whos name suggests that it's for the wireless, if you can't recognize anything to infer that it's for the wireless, then go back to the list for NdisWrapper drivers, and find the closest laptop to yours, and see what the names of their files are, then go back into your folder and see if there are a .inf and .sys file with that name. Got it? Good. Copy them, and paste them into the NdisWrapper folder that you downloaded and extracted. You don't have to put them there, you can put them anywhere, but it keeps things simple. Now change the folder's name to 'wls' (short for wireless), again, to keep things simple. Now you're ready to compile for your first time, and install NdisWrapper...

Now, what i'm going to do, because this is such a universally difficult task, where lot's of novice - and even some more experienced - users have had one hell of a time getting the configuration and setup (not the installation, that's the easy part) to work, i am going to completely uninstall MY ndiswrapper driver, AND ndiswrapper itself, so that i HAVE to do this correctly in order for it to work, and i will type as i go along. Fun fun fun, here we go...