WLAN EMERGENCY!!!!

[Jeff Vian]

Rick Stevens wrote:

> Jim Pelton wrote (reformatted for bottom posting):
>
>> On Thu, 2004-02-26 at 09:08, Ralph Angenendt wrote:
>>
>>> Javier Gonzalez wrote:
>>>
>>>> I desperately need a wlan adapter that will work in my Laptop. I have
>>>> Fedora Core 1 install, and it seems to be better with wlan, but I have
>>>> still found a card that it's relatively easy to install. I have tried
>>>> Linksys Instant Wireless ver.3, and Netgear MA401. Netgear just
>>>> doesn't do a damn thing for me.
>>>
>>>
>>> The MA401 was recognized by Anaconda, so I cannot see, which problem 
>>> you
>>> might have there. Just worked out of the box, so to speak.
>>>
>>> You need to modprobe the orinoco_cs and hermes modules for it to work -
>>> if your PCMCIA stuff is working.
>>>
>>> Do you get any errors when you do that?
>>>
>>> Ralph
>>
>
>> Javier,
>> I have struggled a little with WLAN cards in my Powerbook (yes yes I
>> know diff, distro, but same idea). I found that many cards have
>> different chipsets, but are packaged under the same model (but with
>> different versions). It's important that you get a card with the Orinoco
>> PrismII chipset, because it's best supported under linux. There are
>> other drivers, for other chipsets, but it's hard (at least for a newbie
>> like I!) to compile them properly. So I would continue with the Linksys
>> v. 3 card. It's the one I use and it's great!
>>     
>>     Now, check your /etc/sysconfig/pcmcia file. it's should read:
>> PCMCIA=yes
>> PCIC=yenta_socket
>> PCIC_OPTS=-f (i think!)
>> CORE_OPTS=
>>     When you have changed this file, try restarting pcmcia services with
>> your card inserted. Now cardmgr should load and you should get two
>> similar beeps suggesting that cardmgr has recongnized the card as one
>> which has a driver installed on your system. (I think RH systems have
>> the orinoco_cs driver (for prismII) installed somewhere as default). 
>>     Now you can run redhat-network-config and add the wireless device as
>> eth1 or whatever is appropriate. 
>
>
> One should also examine the ndiswrapper stuff at
> http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net.  It allows you to use WXP/2K/2K3
> drivers (the .inf and .sys files) under a wrapper driver.  I use it
> for my Broadcom BCM94306 802.11g wireless on my Fujitsu laptop.
> Works fine. 

This and the driverloader tool available from linuxant.com work similarly.

A bit OT, but be aware of some problems.
With the OS drivers, tools to monitor and control the adapter ( like 
kismet ) can work.
When using the windows specific drivers (regardless of what wrappers are 
used), the extra functionality/control is not available since the 
windows driver does not support it.

I received informatin from Broadcom that at present they have no plans 
to make their drivers open, so you are limited to whatever functionality 
they have deemed appropriate.