Re: [gentoo-user] Recommend me a good PCMCIA wireless network card
On 24/07/05 18:06:51, Stroller wrote: On Jul 24, 2005, at 1:49 am, Ian K wrote: I have an older laptop that I want to add to my network, (its a 802.11B one) and I was wondering what brands/models would work the best under Linux. Im fairly flexible, and would really not like to tinker with too many drivers. Any good ideas? Currently available are cards using the Ralink chipset, as this manufacturer has open-sourced their own drivers and there is a strong GPL project that will (I believe) eventually join the main kernel tree. I bought one of these by accident - I bought a PC with an Asus A8V motherboard without realising that it included on-board wireless with the RT2500 chipset.* The main thing to beware of is that the RT2500 driver doesn't work with SMP kernels; at first, before I realised this, I was using an SMP kernel even though I have a single-processor system, and found that the system would lock up within seconds of loading the RT2500 module. * Asus made (make?) two motherboards with almost-identical part numbers, and almost identical specs, the main difference being the wireless chipset. When I bought my PC, the spec didn't mention enough of the mb part number to tell which it was; but as wireless wasn't mentioned in the PC spec, and I was offered (and turned down) a wireless card as an optional extra, I assumed I'd be getting the cheaper non-wireless MB. I was pleasantly surprised to find the more expensive one in the case when it arrived. -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
[gentoo-user] Recommend me a good PCMCIA wireless network card
Hi there, I have an older laptop that I want to add to my network, (its a 802.11B one) and I was wondering what brands/models would work the best under Linux. Im fairly flexible, and would really not like to tinker with too many drivers. Any good ideas? Thanks! begin:vcard fn:Ian K n:K;Ian email;internet:[EMAIL PROTECTED] note;quoted-printable:Pentium 3=0D=0A= 500mHz=0D=0A= 256MB RAM=0D=0A= 80.0GB HDD=0D=0A= ATI Radeon 7000 Evil Wizard 64MB=0D=0A= Computer name: PentaQuad=0D=0A= x-mozilla-html:TRUE version:2.1 end:vcard
Re: [gentoo-user] Recommend me a good PCMCIA wireless network card
On 7/23/05, Ian K [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi there, I have an older laptop that I want to add to my network, (its a 802.11B one) and I was wondering what brands/models would work the best under Linux. Im fairly flexible, and would really not like to tinker with too many drivers. Any good ideas? Thanks! I've always had good luck with cards that use the Orinoco chipset and the only time I've had to tinder with drivers was when I wanted to get Kismet working with the card. You should be able to pick one up for under $50. Check out http://www.proxim.com or http://www.buffalotech.com for more details. -- http://pizon.org -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Recommend me a good PCMCIA wireless network card
On Jul 24, 2005, at 2:54 AM, Greg Bur wrote: On 7/23/05, Ian K [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi there, I have an older laptop that I want to add to my network, (its a 802.11B one) and I was wondering what brands/models would work the best under Linux. Im fairly flexible, and would really not like to tinker with too many drivers. Any good ideas? Thanks! I've always had good luck with cards that use the Orinoco chipset and the only time I've had to tinder with drivers was when I wanted to get Kismet working with the card. You should be able to pick one up for under $50. Check out http://www.proxim.com or http://www.buffalotech.com for more details. Just remember, if the laptop isn't going too far, a good length of Ye Olde Cat5e is a much cheaper solution. That being said... Yeah, I picked up a great Orinoco (branded as Enterasys) at Rokland.com last month for roughly $50. Atheros chipset, 802.11a/ SuperA/b/b+/g/SuperG... very nice. It works in Windows (with the driver CD), Mac OS X (with the shareware OrangeWare driver--totally worth the $15 shareware fee) and, naturally, Linux (with MADWIFI). It picks up Channels 1 through 14, and can put out up to 100 mW of power (40 mW on A networks). There's no antenna jack, though, but I hear most PCMCIA Orinocoes can be modded to include some kind of external jack; I'm not that desperate for power, but with dial-up at home, I might do that mod and build a yagi antenna, get in my car, and... well, you get the idea. :-) Still haven't had any luck with KisMAC (the OS X port of Kismet), though. It finds my card but doesn't detect my wireless network... I'll figure it out eventually. -- Colin -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Recommend me a good PCMCIA wireless network card
Colin wrote: On Jul 24, 2005, at 2:54 AM, Greg Bur wrote: On 7/23/05, Ian K [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi there, I have an older laptop that I want to add to my network, (its a 802.11B one) and I was wondering what brands/models would work the best under Linux. Im fairly flexible, and would really not like to tinker with too many drivers. Any good ideas? Thanks! I've always had good luck with cards that use the Orinoco chipset and the only time I've had to tinder with drivers was when I wanted to get Kismet working with the card. You should be able to pick one up for under $50. Check out http://www.proxim.com or http://www.buffalotech.com for more details. Just remember, if the laptop isn't going too far, a good length of Ye Olde Cat5e is a much cheaper solution. That being said... Yeah, I picked up a great Orinoco (branded as Enterasys) at Rokland.com last month for roughly $50. Atheros chipset, 802.11a/ SuperA/b/b+/g/SuperG... very nice. It works in Windows (with the driver CD), Mac OS X (with the shareware OrangeWare driver--totally worth the $15 shareware fee) and, naturally, Linux (with MADWIFI). It picks up Channels 1 through 14, and can put out up to 100 mW of power (40 mW on A networks). There's no antenna jack, though, but I hear most PCMCIA Orinocoes can be modded to include some kind of external jack; I'm not that desperate for power, but with dial-up at home, I might do that mod and build a yagi antenna, get in my car, and... well, you get the idea. :-) Still haven't had any luck with KisMAC (the OS X port of Kismet), though. It finds my card but doesn't detect my wireless network... I'll figure it out eventually. -- Colin My other laptop has a nice atheros wireless card, very painless to set up. I dont know what chipsets are on what cards, so perhaps you could give me a model name and brand? I really just want to be able to goto futureshop and pick one up.. :) Thank you for understanding my dumbness. :) Ian begin:vcard fn:Ian K n:K;Ian email;internet:[EMAIL PROTECTED] note;quoted-printable:Pentium 3=0D=0A= 500mHz=0D=0A= 256MB RAM=0D=0A= 80.0GB HDD=0D=0A= ATI Radeon 7000 Evil Wizard 64MB=0D=0A= Computer name: PentaQuad=0D=0A= x-mozilla-html:TRUE version:2.1 end:vcard
Re: [gentoo-user] Recommend me a good PCMCIA wireless network card
Colin wrote: On Jul 24, 2005, at 2:54 AM, Greg Bur wrote: On 7/23/05, Ian K [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi there, I have an older laptop that I want to add to my network, (its a 802.11B one) and I was wondering what brands/models would work the best under Linux. Im fairly flexible, and would really not like to tinker with too many drivers. Any good ideas? Thanks! I've always had good luck with cards that use the Orinoco chipset and the only time I've had to tinder with drivers was when I wanted to get Kismet working with the card. You should be able to pick one up for under $50. Check out http://www.proxim.com or http://www.buffalotech.com for more details. Just remember, if the laptop isn't going too far, a good length of Ye Olde Cat5e is a much cheaper solution. That being said... Oh, this laptop has absolutely no ethernet port, and the router is in my parent's room, so just to be out of the way, i would like to go for a wireless card. :) Ian begin:vcard fn:Ian K n:K;Ian email;internet:[EMAIL PROTECTED] note;quoted-printable:Pentium 3=0D=0A= 500mHz=0D=0A= 256MB RAM=0D=0A= 80.0GB HDD=0D=0A= ATI Radeon 7000 Evil Wizard 64MB=0D=0A= Computer name: PentaQuad=0D=0A= x-mozilla-html:TRUE version:2.1 end:vcard
Re: [gentoo-user] Recommend me a good PCMCIA wireless network card
Just remember, if the laptop isn't going too far, a good length of Ye Olde Cat5e is a much cheaper solution. That being said... Changes the possible security implications too... Yeah, I picked up a great Orinoco (branded as Enterasys) at Rokland.com last month for roughly $50. Atheros chipset, 802.11a/ SuperA/b/b+/g/SuperG... very nice. It works in Windows (with the driver CD), Mac OS X (with the shareware OrangeWare driver--totally worth the $15 shareware fee) and, naturally, Linux (with MADWIFI). It picks up Channels 1 through 14, and can put out up to 100 mW of power (40 mW on A networks). I forgot about Enterasys and Atheros. The Orinoco-based cards have power output of around 24mW and the sensitivity is right around -83dB which I've found works well in most situations. I usually see about 3.5mbps of throughput when connected at 11mbps. Could be better but it gets the job done. Btw, I think YDI (Terabeam) still sells an Orinoco-based card. They've got really good support should you need it. There's no antenna jack, though, but I hear most PCMCIA Orinocoes can be modded to include some kind of external jack; I'm not that desperate for power, but with dial-up at home, I might do that mod and build a yagi antenna, get in my car, and... well, you get the idea. :-) I've got three or four of the cards back from the days when they were still made by Lucent and with the proper pigtail you can connect an external antenna. In fact I used to use Orinoco PC cards with a PCI adapter to deliver high-speed access to folks around here and they worked quite well, then the telco showed up with DSL but that's another story. As for the newer cards, I believe the Proxim cards can be modded by opening the antenna housing on the card to get to the antenna connector. If you want to go to an external antenna check with YDI, I think they still make PC cards with external antenna connectors. Still haven't had any luck with KisMAC (the OS X port of Kismet), though. It finds my card but doesn't detect my wireless network... I'll figure it out eventually. Maybe the drivers don't support monitor mode? That's what I ran into with Linux but that was only a kernel patch away and my experience with KisMAC is exactly zero... -- http://pizon.org -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Recommend me a good PCMCIA wireless network card
On 7/23/05, Ian K [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: My other laptop has a nice atheros wireless card, very painless to set up. I dont know what chipsets are on what cards, so perhaps you could give me a model name and brand? I really just want to be able to goto futureshop and pick one up.. :) Thank you for understanding my dumbness. :) Ian http://tinyurl.com/9l9wl That should work well for you ;) I noticed on a previous page that they offer an 802.11g card for $30 but I'm not sure about driver compatibility. -- http://pizon.org -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Recommend me a good PCMCIA wireless network card
Ian K wrote: My other laptop has a nice atheros wireless card, very painless to set up. I dont know what chipsets are on what cards, so perhaps you could give me a model name and brand? Unfortunately, neither does anybody else on this list. This is because manufacturers have a habit of changing chipsets without changing model numbers. So lot #1234 can be atheros, while #1235 can be intersil, #1236 can be, well you get the picture. The best is to buy from a store with a liberal return/exchange policy...of course it always helps if it says supports linux on the box! -Richard -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Recommend me a good PCMCIA wireless network card
On Jul 24, 2005, at 3:56 AM, Richard Fish wrote: Ian K wrote: My other laptop has a nice atheros wireless card, very painless to set up. I dont know what chipsets are on what cards, so perhaps you could give me a model name and brand? Unfortunately, neither does anybody else on this list. This is because manufacturers have a habit of changing chipsets without changing model numbers. So lot #1234 can be atheros, while #1235 can be intersil, #1236 can be, well you get the picture. The best is to buy from a store with a liberal return/exchange policy...of course it always helps if it says supports linux on the box! Yeah, if you've listened to this list, you'll know some chipsets are good, and some are just plain bad. Bad chipsets (Broadcom, PrismGT, ACX100, ACX111) are not supported well if at all under Linux. (Hell, even Windows choked on a Windows-only ACX111 card.) You may have success with the Windows drivers and NDISwrapper, but more than likely this is one for shipping back to your e-tailer. These chipsets being el cheapo, they pop up in a lot of low-end consumer wireless devices. Good chipsets (Atheros, Atmel, Intersil, Orinoco, Prism, Prism2) are natively supported by Linux, and most of them can be loaded from the LiveCD with the modprobe command. The rest are usually supported by building in support when you build the kernel. Sadly, these are more expensive because all the hardware is on the card, and nothing is emulated via a driver (remember Winmodems vs. hardware modems? This is it all over again.) But you do get what you pay for, as a lot of enterprise-level solutions have these chipsets, and they boast excellent reliability, compatibility and range. Any other chipset, just Google. Some manufacturers stick to one chipset (like Apple does Broadcom). However, most manufacturers often change chipsets during production without warning, keeping the same model number and just tacking on a Revision B, often written on the card only but most do write it on the box in tiny print. Just wait until no one's looking and open up the box and check :-) As for supports Linux, there are far too many distros, drivers, hacks and configurations to test with. Maybe they tested Debian with MADWIFI? Slackware with NDISwrapper... and which Windows driver? If it says Linux compatible, don't take it as a green light. Take it as a yield sign instead--look first, then go. If you've got a laptop, bring it and a LiveCD to the store (if you don't buy it online) and give it a whirl... with permission, of course. And slip the boy at Best Buy a couple Alexander Hamiltons ($10 bills, in case you forgot your U.S. history) for making him put up with you testing a million different cards and not finding anything that works. :-P -- Colin -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Recommend me a good PCMCIA wireless network card
Unfortunately, neither does anybody else on this list. This is because manufacturers have a habit of changing chipsets without changing model numbers. So lot #1234 can be atheros, while #1235 can be intersil, #1236 can be, well you get the picture. The best is to buy from a store with a liberal return/exchange policy...of course it always helps if it says supports linux on the box! -Richard This is exactly why I stick with Proxim or Buffalotech, they aren't the usual moving targets like some other vendors. It's also nice to have the ability to pick up the phone and talk to someone about the product. They are usually quite willing to help. Speaking of companies who are willing to help check out http://www.demarctech.com. They post right on their website whether or not a particular card has Linux drivers available and they cater primarily to small, independent WISPs. Good bunch of people to work with. I hope all of this information has helped rather than furthered your confusion. -- http://pizon.org -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Recommend me a good PCMCIA wireless network card
On Jul 24, 2005, at 8:44 am, Greg Bur wrote: On 7/23/05, Ian K [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: My other laptop has a nice atheros wireless card, very painless to set up. I dont know what chipsets are on what cards, so perhaps you could give me a model name and brand? I really just want to be able to goto futureshop and pick one up.. :) Thank you for understanding my dumbness. :) Ian http://tinyurl.com/9l9wl AIRSTATION 11MBPS WIRELESS PCMCIA LAPTOP CARD PC/MAC That should work well for you ;) I noticed on a previous page that they offer an 802.11g card for $30 but I'm not sure about driver compatibility. The Macintosh-compatible 802.11g card uses the same Broadcom chipset as Apple's Airport Extreme products - I know, because I sold three of these cards to another Mac-reseller last week. I believe that there are no open-source drivers for this chipset, and have seen NDISwrapper referred to in many forums articles relating to it. This is not a comment on the 802.11b 11MBPS card that your link points to - for all I know that may use the excellently-supported Prism chipset. Stroller. -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Recommend me a good PCMCIA wireless network card
On Jul 24, 2005, at 1:49 am, Ian K wrote: I have an older laptop that I want to add to my network, (its a 802.11B one) and I was wondering what brands/models would work the best under Linux. Im fairly flexible, and would really not like to tinker with too many drivers. Any good ideas? Currently available are cards using the Ralink chipset, as this manufacturer has open-sourced their own drivers and there is a strong GPL project that will (I believe) eventually join the main kernel tree. I have tested CNet cards using this chipset, and indeed I supply them to Windows customers as they're very good value, however I prefer the Belkin under Linux, as they just seem to behave slightly better. The difference is nearly intangible, but the CNet cards would sometimes not start properly when called by the /etc/init.d scripts, only to work perfectly when restarted manually. I could not make any rhyme nor reason of this, although I expect they'll work perfectly in a year or two when the rt2500 driver is more mature. Some others have suggested finding a supplier with a liberal returns policy and have suggested that no-one can guarantee that a model will have a specific chipset. I'm associated with the famous UK cartoon IT consultant, Network Ned, and can vouch that he does indeed test every batch of wireless cards that he receives for Linux compatibility. He offers these on a guaranteed to work with Linux basis - http://networkned.co.uk/hardware.php - but is aware that his website isn't CSS-compliant, thankyouverymuch. Stroller. -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Recommend me a good PCMCIA wireless network card
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Stroller wrote: On Jul 24, 2005, at 8:44 am, Greg Bur wrote: On 7/23/05, Ian K [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: My other laptop has a nice atheros wireless card, very painless to set up. I dont know what chipsets are on what cards, so perhaps you could give me a model name and brand? I really just want to be able to goto futureshop and pick one up.. :) Thank you for understanding my dumbness. :) Ian http://tinyurl.com/9l9wl AIRSTATION 11MBPS WIRELESS PCMCIA LAPTOP CARD PC/MAC That should work well for you ;) I noticed on a previous page that they offer an 802.11g card for $30 but I'm not sure about driver compatibility. The Macintosh-compatible 802.11g card uses the same Broadcom chipset as Apple's Airport Extreme products - I know, because I sold three of these cards to another Mac-reseller last week. I believe that there are no open-source drivers for this chipset, and have seen NDISwrapper referred to in many forums articles relating to it. This is not a comment on the 802.11b 11MBPS card that your link points to - for all I know that may use the excellently-supported Prism chipset. Stroller. Get an Atheros or Prism54 based chipset, then all will be good. :) cheers. -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFC48vGDkIR3wj6NQcRAnqvAJ9bwjMe1YHmWiejaZTkzXC4yKkgSgCdERYy +KzqOljKsnwNao0b7xh1lBU= =Ir/J -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Recommend me a good PCMCIA wireless network card
On 7/24/05, Stroller [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Jul 24, 2005, at 8:44 am, Greg Bur wrote: The Macintosh-compatible 802.11g card uses the same Broadcom chipset as Apple's Airport Extreme products - I know, because I sold three of these cards to another Mac-reseller last week. I believe that there are no open-source drivers for this chipset, and have seen NDISwrapper referred to in many forums articles relating to it. That answers my question of compatibility. This is not a comment on the 802.11b 11MBPS card that your link points to - for all I know that may use the excellently-supported Prism chipset. I'm pretty sure it uses a supported chipset but I can't help but wonder if maybe Buffalo changed horses somewhere along the line and is now using Broadcom chipsets in all of their PC Cards. -- http://pizon.org -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Recommend me a good PCMCIA wireless network card
On Sun, 24 Jul 2005 18:00:27 +0100, Stroller wrote: The Macintosh-compatible 802.11g card uses the same Broadcom chipset as Apple's Airport Extreme products - I know, because I sold three of these cards to another Mac-reseller last week. I believe that there are no open-source drivers for this chipset, and have seen NDISwrapper referred to in many forums articles relating to it. The driver for the Broadcom chip in the Airport Extreme card is indeed closed source. You can use it with ndiswrapper on x86, but not in an Apple laptop. This is not a comment on the 802.11b 11MBPS card that your link points to - for all I know that may use the excellently-supported Prism chipset. The Airport card uses a different chipset from the Airport extreme, one for which an open source driver is available. -- Neil Bothwick Seduced by the Chocolate side of the Force... pgpY3xhjSuZgS.pgp Description: PGP signature
