Ubuntu 7.10 Wifi on Presario V5000

This is a guide to get wireless Internet working with Ubuntu 7.10 on a Compaq Presario V5000 laptop. I did not figure all of this out myself, but gathered and found it through a few sources. Its exactly what I did on my laptop. Guides I found gave more info then I needed, and this should help out people with a Compaq Presario v5000.

Step 1: All BCM43xx – Install NDISWrapper and Blacklist Native Driver

echo 'blacklist bcm43xx' | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
sudo apt-get install ndiswrapper-utils-1.9
mkdir ~/bcm43xx; cd ~/bcm43xx

Step 2: Download and Extract Drivers

sudo apt-get install cabextract
wget ftp://ftp.compaq.com/pub/softpaq/sp34001-34500/sp34152.exe
cabextract sp34152.exe

Step 3: All BCM43xx – Configure NDISWrapper (and WPA Supplicant)

sudo ndiswrapper -i bcmwl5.inf
ndiswrapper -l
sudo depmod -a
sudo modprobe ndiswrapper
sudo cp /etc/network/interfaces /etc/network/interfaces.orig
echo -e 'auto lo\niface lo inet loopback\n' | sudo tee /etc/network/interfaces
sudo ndiswrapper -m
echo 'ndiswrapper' | sudo tee -a /etc/modules
echo 'ENABLED=0' | sudo tee -a /etc/default/wpasupplicant

Step 4: REBOOT

After your laptop is all booted up you should now be able to find wireless networks in Ubuntu 7.10, and connect to them.

If you would like, you can now cleanup unneeded files:

rm -Rf ~/bcm43xx

via Ubuntu Documentation