[PLUG] Wireless network card

Keith Lofstrom keithl at kl-ic.com
Thu Oct 30 22:57:02 UTC 2003


>I am looking to put a pci wireless network card into my linux machine. are
>there any 802.11g cards yet supported by linux. and if so, which ones are.

I don't know when the drivers will arrive, but I am told the Atheros
chipset will be supported by an open source Linux driver.  The long-time
friend of open source Sam Leffler (hylafax) will be driving that effort.

Note also that you probably do NOT want to put a PCI wireless card into
a typical desktop.  The external Wireless Access Points do just fine, 
and are configurable from web pages;  they are more-or-less OS agnostic.
There are some WAPs (linksys??) that can have the firmware upgraded,
and some folks are actually running embedded Linux on the WAP!

If you have a laptop, you probably want a PCMCIA card, not a PCI card.
The mini-PCI cards are good only if you have built-in antennas.  Find
a PCMCIA card with a PRISM-II chipset, and look for SENAO or rebranded
cards, with 200mW output.  Also, you will get better range if you can
use an external antenna.

The Personal Telco Project people are mostly Linux savvy (most of the
repeaters are based on Soekris boards running Linux from flash disk),
and about half the laptops are running Linux, too.  Look at their
site www.personaltelco.net for more useful information.

Keith



Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom           keithl at ieee.org         Voice (503)-520-1993
KLIC --- Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits --- "Your Ideas in Silicon"
Design Contracting in Bipolar and CMOS - Analog, Digital, and Scan ICs




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