On Tue, 2005-05-10 at 08:16 -0700, Richard Fish wrote: > Most "prism2/GT" boards work great with in-kernel drivers, but they can > be hard to find.
I have a source for the MiniPCI version of these cards in the Philippines; we use the Prism GT "Javelin" chipset boards as an OEM module in our product. The company makes both Javelin and Frisbee based boards, as well as boards based on the Connexant/Intersil WorldRadio chipset. > Some others can be made to work with the > windows driver via the NDIS wrapper, but I have never tried this. I have successfully run a Broadcom BCM94306MP chipset using the NDIS wrapper driver. It was a PITA, used closed-source drivers and performed poorly. Avoid Broadcom's cards! I ended up yanking this board out of my laptop and replacing it with an Atheros CM9 reference design board. That is soon to be replaced with a Connexant/Intersil ISL3886 (Javelin) based card. > Unfortunately, manufacturers change chipsets frequently, sometimes > without even updating the version number of the product, so good luck! According to the local FAE for Connexant/Intersil products, the ISL3880 and ISL3886 (PRISM GT Frisbee and Javelin, respectively) are in full production and have not yet reached maturity, so they won't be end-of-lifed any time soon. The ISL3890 (Duette) chipset is in it's maturity phase, and is thus "not recommended for new designs". The WorldRadio (PRISM GT Crossbow) chipset is also not slated for discontinuation any time soon. An important thing to note about the Intersil chipsets is the amount of available RAM on the MAC. The newer Javelin chipset only has 512Kb of SRAM on the MAC chip, so it require what Intersil calls a "split MAC" driver, where some of the higher-level MAC functions reside in system SRAM. The older Frisbee version of the PRISM GT chipset has 2Mb of on-MAC SRAM. Our product uses [vomit] Windows CE, so I'm not sure about split-MAC drivers for Linux. I'm sure there's some mention of it at prism54.org, but I won't be able to check it out until lunch... > Check out: > > http://prism54.org/supported_cards.php > http://www.linux-wlan.org/docs/wlan_adapters.html.gz Amusingly enough, when Xterasys end-of-lifed the XG600 (which is a Frisbee-based MiniPCI WLAN card) that we were using in our product, that 2nd link is the one we used to locate another one! We settled on a model from Easix. They don't have any US distributors, hence my contact above. One thing to note, if you're looking to change the MiniPCI card in your laptop, be careful about what form factor it supports. Most laptops support some flavor of Type III ... Caution is due because Type IIIa cards are longer in the Y dimension than Type IIIb cards. Check the type before you sink any $$ into a card! Dave PS - UPDATE - Looked on Prism54.org and it looks like the Linux drivers do NOT support the so-called "Split-MAC" or "Soft MAC" cards. So stick with the Frisbee-based versions! The web site gives a somewhat accurate, albeit limited, assessment of the issue. The CARD manufacturers are designing the Frisbee chipset out of their products because it's about $1.50 more expensive in volume. So when they make 150,000 cards, that adds up to a chunk of change. Connexant/Intersil just makes the chipset, and they report they will continue to support and manufacture the frisbee chipset. Get yer Frisbees while they're hot! -- [email protected] mailing list
