Two tools for enabling wireless cards
No other hardware nowadays supports GNU/Linux as weakly as wireless network adapters. Between the constant release of new models and major vendors who are uninterested in supporting the operating system, free drivers for wireless cards are next to impossible to reverse engineer. Nor can you find many retailers willing to customize laptops as readily as they do workstations. In this situation, ndiswrapper and the Broadcom firmware cutter provide a functional, if not always satisfactory, solution.
These two programs are unsatisfactory for two reasons. First, they fall under the category that the Debian repositories label "contrib": they are free in themselves, but depend on proprietary programs to work. Basically, the programs extract the necessary GNU/Linux drivers from Windows or Mac drivers released by the manufacturers and provide a means of using them under GNU/Linux -- a process that many free software supporters may find philosophically objectionable and that, despite the free availability of the drivers, may be technically illegal. Second, using the two programs is arcane enough to intimidate many users, especially since some of the details vary depending on the distribution with which they're used.
To make matters worse, partial documentation for both programs clogs the Internet.
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