Installing Cisco / Linksys AE2500 wireless adapter in linux

It took me several hours and missteps to convert my son’s Windows 7 box to Ubuntu, all because of the wireless adapter. It’s a Cisco branded Linksys AE2500. Here’s what I learned:

• Use the 32-bit version of Ubuntu (actually, I didn’t try 64-bit after switching to the source for ndiswrapper).
• Download the latest ndiswrapper from sourceforge – follow the instructions at http://tinymelinux.com/forum/thread-865-post-3760.html#pid3760 to compile and install it.
• The Windows XP drivers (don’t use Vista’s or Windows 7’s) are available at Cisco’s site.
• This link was helpful as well – especially the part to do “sudo ndiswrapper -m” to automatically load on startup.

EDIT: The “sudo ndiswrapper -m” did NOT automatically load on startup; I had to add “ndiswrapper” to /etc/modules.

sudo ndiswrapper -m