Hi, I've been happily running pfSense v1.2 embedded on a Alix board that has 2 USB, 2 mini pci, 2 eth ports, 1 antenna hole, a serial console port, and is all running on a 512mb CF card, but I also have a 44pin header inside.
1. My first goal to make this thing wireless. I have 2 wireless cards. The first is a Broadcom BCM9431MPG mini pc, which is a pull from a HP laptop. It has 2 antenna leads. I can't find much about this card at all. It's a B/G. 2. My second card is an Atheros AR5416, an A/B/G/N mini pci card that is a pull from an Apple Airport Extreme, which BTW sucks. It's a MIMO, 3 antenna leads, with 3 antennas mounted on the sides as small chips. But it's a fast card. But the Apple AE can't handle anything over a speed of about 750kb/s, or it makes the amber light on my Cisco 10/100 switch blink, and eventually will stall. 3. My goal is to get 1 or 2 (I'm pretty sure only 1 wireless card is allowed in the box) of the wireless cards in the box, working top speed, and I read something some time ago about attaching the antenna to a old DirectTV Dish that is not being used, which I happen to have on my roof here in the Bronx, as with the Airport - even right next to it, I get only 60% signal, as my place has brick walls that kill the signal. But I need some range of about 3 city blocks so my biz partner can hop on my wireless network, and so I can use my own wireless at the coffee shop just across the street, both in the same direction, linear, bearing NE. 4. So my question is, will either of these cards work with my Alix board, and if so, how do I find and enable the drivers? And is the dish going to work if I adapt the connection to the 50ft-75ft coax cable to N connectors on one end with the purchase of some pigtails? IF neither of these cards will work, what card do you recommend that will work with the dish, and/or have the highest signal for under $100? 5. OpenWRT is the only place I have found a driver for the Atheros 5008 chip, in collaboration with MadWIFI. But I need this to run as a firewall, and temp. router for now, as it is being used now. And I like pfSense. All other networking equipment is Cisco, and I have a Cisco 7507 router packed full of goodies, but can't get a serial connection to it to set it up. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated as well - as I have 2 RSPs, and both the Y-cables for console and AUX, but every combo of connecting Y-console cable to serial port on PC using TeraTerm returns nothing at all. Yet all other Cisco equipment works fine. 1. My second question is, the embedded version is very limited compared to full version. Should I install a full version on an ultra-fast 1GB CF flash card? Will it fit? Or should I sacrifice the clean box I have the Alix board in and throw a 40GB 2.5" HD in there on the 44pin header? And if so, how do I make it boot from this drive if I want to keep a CF card with a backup config file attached? The 44pin header is not soldered in yet, but I have TONS of laptop parts, as I built a server out of 4 Mac Minis that all were adapted to handle 4 full size 3.5" drives each. A bit slow due to limit of 1GB RAM each, but does okay job. Soldering 44pin is no prob for me, but I'm out of enclosures except for the Mac Mini ones, which are severely shielded inside, and from what I've read, the farther away the antenna is from the card, there is less noise, but will eventually not work. What should I do? 2. I also would like to know what the USB ports can be used for, and the secondary mini-pci slot. Like I said I'm running embedded right now, and there aren't any options for these USB ports. I dunno what they can be used for, but I'd like to have network printing and network shared hard drive if these will work with the USB ports. How do I do this? Thanks for your help in advance - sorry so many questions, but I spent all night looking for the answers, and didn't really come up with any. I read the e-mails every day, but ¾ of the time I have no idea what you all are talking about, especially when it comes to v.1.3. ? Thanks again! Sincerely, Patrick -----Original Message----- From: Eugen Leitl [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, October 27, 2008 10:26 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [pfSense Support] alix board embedded help On Mon, Oct 27, 2008 at 10:55:10AM +0000, Paul Mansfield wrote: > > > 3. My goal is to get 1 or 2 (I'm pretty sure only 1 wireless card > > is allowed in the box) of the wireless cards in the box, working top > > speed, and I read something some time ago about attaching the antenna to > > a old DirectTV Dish that is not being used, which I happen to have on my > > this isn't going to solve your problem as it's a seller here in England, > but Solwise ( http://www.solwise.co.uk/ ) have a very good selection of > adaptors, cables and pig-tails. This would mean you could find out if > there were off-the-shelf components which would make your project possible. I seem to be unable to see the original message. The list archives don't seem to have it either. Can anyone repost? -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org";>leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
