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I just came across a message posted to the wlan-ng list. There is a company out there called "Linuxant" and they have released "Driveloader", a windoze driver compatibility layer and installer. Here is the info from their page:
"DriverLoader is a revolutionary compatibility-wrapper allowing standard Windows NDIS (Network Driver Interface Specification) drivers shipped by hardware vendors to be used as-is on Linux x86 systems.
DriverLoader technology is the ideal Linux solution to support devices for which no adequate native open-source drivers are available. It also allows vendors to drastically reduce time to market or eliminate the need to support multiple drivers for Windows and Linux. By using the same driver on both platforms, significant resources can be saved. "
There are rpms available for Mandrake and Redhat, plus "generic" rpms for everyone else. The package is made up of open and binary components as needed by licensing.
Their website is: http://www.linuxant.com/driverloader
You must read their release notes and agree before downloading. Unless you are a full GPL/OSS-only type, the agreement isn't onerous at all.
Thus, it appears that they have a package that allows you to use windows drivers for wireless lan devices when there are no available linux-native drivers.
I downloaded rpms for both 9.1 and 9.2 (I have 9.1 right now and expect to install 9.2 soonish). If this works as advertised, this is cool. 802.11g support for linux (after a fashion) as well as 802.11b for those annoying devices for which there are no linux drivers.
I can not help but to be skeptical butt... Do keep us up to date on how these drivers work, if indeed they do...
drjung
-- J. Craig Woods UNIX Network/System Engineer http://www.trismegistus.net/resume.htm Let him that would move the world, first move himself. --Socrates
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