Netgear N300 WNA3100 Install Ubuntu 13.04

Question

I've never used Ubuntu before so I am completely lost with what to do.

I bought a Netgear N300 (WNA3100) wireless adapter card a few months ago after my old card stopped working. I decided to dualboot my computer a few weeks ago and I've come across a few issues, this being the most important.

It works perfectly fine on my Windows 7 install, but not on Ubuntu. I'm using 13.04.

Solution

I experienced a lot of problems also. After I finally got it working it turns out the steps are:

1) Install Wine (to extract the drivers from the manufacturer's download). If you already have the drivers folder from a different installation you don't need to install Wine.

2) Install the ndiswrapper modules (ndiswrapper-dkms ndisgtk ndiswrapper-common ndiswrapper-source ndiswrapper-utils-1.9).

3) Grab the drivers folder (ie. WNA3100). Go to that folder. Run the commands (to load the driver):

$ sudo modprobe ndiswrapper
$ sudo ndiswrapper -i [driver]  # (moste likely named "bcmwlhigh5.ini"

Details and troubleshooting can be found at: http://faq.apollo3.com/ljames/ubuntu/networksupport/

Those steps should work for most USB network adapters.