Hi -
I can't recommend using a variety of different wireless hardware with
different chipsets, drivers, firmware in a network - yet. And I don't
know any USB stick that I would recommend. If someone reading this list
has a working recommendation still available for purchase, please add a
comment.
What we usually do is: Get a router supported by Freifunk/OpenWRT with
Broadcom/Atheros SoC inside, reflash it with Freifunk Firmware and
connect it to your notebook. Or: If you have Atheros in your notebook or
PC with a self compiled recent Madwifi, fine. Otherwise replace the
build-in card with something Atheros-based (you may have to modify your
notebooks BIOS if you use IBM/Lenovo/HP, in order that the machine
accepts the card), or insert a additional cardbus/express card with
Atheros chipset, given that you still have a cardbus/express interface
in your notebook. The Madwifi driver shipped with your favorite Linux
distro may not work properly, so get it from madwifi.org and compile it
against the Linux kernel that you are running.
With Atheros you can fix the IBSSID in order to overcome those notorious
issues with cell-splitting, I also managed to perform this with IPW3945.
Also OpenWRT/Freifunk does allow this with Broadcom hardware, too.
The command on a Linux-PC to fix the IBSSID is:
iwconfig <interface> ap <your preferred cell-id like 02:CA:FF:EE:BA:BE>
Note that this is non-standard behavior, and is unlikely to work with
other cards. Actually upon request from Freifunk this was modified in
the Madwifi driver.
Old Cisco Aironet 802.11b works for me (mostly) as long as the mesh is
the only ad-hoc network around... I use it every day, it is running
stable until I stop it. Also ancient Atmel 76c503 based USB sticks work
- I used to build mesh routers with them in the old days ;-) Old Prism2,
2.5, 3 and Prism54 (Hard-Mac only) work, but are susceptible to
cell-splitting (and may lock up if cell-splitting is already going on in
your WiFi cell).
I have a Intel IPW3945 in a new notebook that works somehow with a
little trick under Ubuntu (fix the Cell-ID in managed mode first, switch
to ad-hoc, set essid, set channel, enable interface) - but from time to
time I get hiccups that seem to be associated with firmware errors
(reported in syslog) - then I need to reset the interface). The
experience with IPW2200 was even worse with a notebook I used a year
ago, but I didn't try that recently.
Broadcom would be an option, but the company doesn't provide drivers for
Linux-PCs. There is an open-source driver but I don't know whether it
actually works in ad-hoc mode now.
cu elektra
thanks, elektra, would it be possible, that an usb stick with wifi
chip and coded in software can be distributed? e.g. by foebud?
we need a solution, where people use their laptop and not need to
configure their routers.
The Laptop or USB-Stick has the wifi chip...
is there a wiki, where all wifi chips are listed and how the bug
fixing for them is going on by whoom?
Maxx
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