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* Question on Wireless NICs
@ 2008-03-25 18:41 Balaji Rao
  2008-03-25 19:32 ` John W. Linville
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 6+ messages in thread
From: Balaji Rao @ 2008-03-25 18:41 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: linux-wireless

Hello all,

My question is, are there any wireless NICs that don't require a firmware to be loaded into them to work ?

I was planning to boot off a wireless NIC through PXE. Is it possible ??

Thank you for your time..

-- 
thanks and regards,
balaji rao

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread

* Re: Question on Wireless NICs
  2008-03-25 18:41 Question on Wireless NICs Balaji Rao
@ 2008-03-25 19:32 ` John W. Linville
  2008-03-25 21:15   ` Ivo van Doorn
  2008-03-26  2:32   ` Pavel Roskin
  0 siblings, 2 replies; 6+ messages in thread
From: John W. Linville @ 2008-03-25 19:32 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Balaji Rao; +Cc: linux-wireless

On Wed, Mar 26, 2008 at 12:11:28AM +0530, Balaji Rao wrote:

> My question is, are there any wireless NICs that don't require a firmware to be loaded into them to work ?

There are some, although many of them are old:  adm8211, airo, ath5k,
rtl8180, rtl8187, and some of the rt2x00 devices.

> I was planning to boot off a wireless NIC through PXE. Is it possible ??

The gPXE (formerly etherboot) project seems to support PCI-based
(e.g. cardbus, but not PCMCIA) orinoco devices.  I cannot verify that,
since I have no such device (donations accepted!)...

Hth!

John
-- 
John W. Linville
linville@tuxdriver.com

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread

* Re: Question on Wireless NICs
  2008-03-25 19:32 ` John W. Linville
@ 2008-03-25 21:15   ` Ivo van Doorn
  2008-03-26  2:32   ` Pavel Roskin
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 6+ messages in thread
From: Ivo van Doorn @ 2008-03-25 21:15 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Balaji Rao; +Cc: John W. Linville, linux-wireless

On Tuesday 25 March 2008, John W. Linville wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 26, 2008 at 12:11:28AM +0530, Balaji Rao wrote:
> 
> > My question is, are there any wireless NICs that don't require a firmware to be loaded into them to work ?
> 
> There are some, although many of them are old:  adm8211, airo, ath5k,
> rtl8180, rtl8187, and some of the rt2x00 devices.

For rt2x00 the following:
rt2400pci, rt2500pci and rt2500usb

> > I was planning to boot off a wireless NIC through PXE. Is it possible ??
> 
> The gPXE (formerly etherboot) project seems to support PCI-based
> (e.g. cardbus, but not PCMCIA) orinoco devices.  I cannot verify that,
> since I have no such device (donations accepted!)...
> 
> Hth!
> 
> John



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread

* Re: Question on Wireless NICs
  2008-03-25 19:32 ` John W. Linville
  2008-03-25 21:15   ` Ivo van Doorn
@ 2008-03-26  2:32   ` Pavel Roskin
  2008-03-27 15:58     ` John W. Linville
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 6+ messages in thread
From: Pavel Roskin @ 2008-03-26  2:32 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: John W. Linville; +Cc: Balaji Rao, linux-wireless

On Tue, 2008-03-25 at 15:32 -0400, John W. Linville wrote:

> The gPXE (formerly etherboot) project seems to support PCI-based
> (e.g. cardbus, but not PCMCIA) orinoco devices.  I cannot verify that,
> since I have no such device (donations accepted!)...

Just to set the record straight, I'm unaware of any CardBus devices
compatible with the orinoco driver, i.e. Prism 2-3, Symbol Trilogy or
Hermes I based 802.11b device.

At the first glance, gPXE appears to support Prism chipset only, either
native PCI or PCMCIA behind PLX9052 bridge.

-- 
Regards,
Pavel Roskin

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread

* Re: Question on Wireless NICs
  2008-03-26  2:32   ` Pavel Roskin
@ 2008-03-27 15:58     ` John W. Linville
  2008-03-27 19:32       ` Pavel Roskin
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 6+ messages in thread
From: John W. Linville @ 2008-03-27 15:58 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Pavel Roskin; +Cc: Balaji Rao, linux-wireless

On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 10:32:48PM -0400, Pavel Roskin wrote:
> On Tue, 2008-03-25 at 15:32 -0400, John W. Linville wrote:
> 
> > The gPXE (formerly etherboot) project seems to support PCI-based
> > (e.g. cardbus, but not PCMCIA) orinoco devices.  I cannot verify that,
> > since I have no such device (donations accepted!)...
> 
> Just to set the record straight, I'm unaware of any CardBus devices
> compatible with the orinoco driver, i.e. Prism 2-3, Symbol Trilogy or
> Hermes I based 802.11b device.
> 
> At the first glance, gPXE appears to support Prism chipset only, either
> native PCI or PCMCIA behind PLX9052 bridge.

I'm not sure where you are looking.  I have a git tree from here:

	git://git.etherboot.org/scm/gpxe.git

The gpxe source file src/drivers/net/prism2_pci.c claims to support
PCI ID 1260:3873 which is listed as a prism 2.5 device supported by
drivers/net/wireless/orinoco_pci.c in the linux tree.  Similarly the
gpxe src/drivers/net/prism2_plx.c claims to support all of the PCI IDs
listed in drivers/net/wireless/orinoco_plx.c from the linux tree as
well as one that is not listed there (126c:8030 -- perhaps we should
add it?).

As I said, I do not have _any_ pci-based prism2-3 hardware (donations
welcome!), so I can not verify whether or not the gpxe code (or for
that matter the linux code) actually works -- YMMV.  I'm just going
by what information I have.

John
-- 
John W. Linville
linville@tuxdriver.com

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread

* Re: Question on Wireless NICs
  2008-03-27 15:58     ` John W. Linville
@ 2008-03-27 19:32       ` Pavel Roskin
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 6+ messages in thread
From: Pavel Roskin @ 2008-03-27 19:32 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: John W. Linville; +Cc: Balaji Rao, linux-wireless

On Thu, 2008-03-27 at 11:58 -0400, John W. Linville wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 10:32:48PM -0400, Pavel Roskin wrote:
> > On Tue, 2008-03-25 at 15:32 -0400, John W. Linville wrote:
> > 
> > > The gPXE (formerly etherboot) project seems to support PCI-based
> > > (e.g. cardbus, but not PCMCIA) orinoco devices.  I cannot verify that,
> > > since I have no such device (donations accepted!)...
> > 
> > Just to set the record straight, I'm unaware of any CardBus devices
> > compatible with the orinoco driver, i.e. Prism 2-3, Symbol Trilogy or
> > Hermes I based 802.11b device.
> > 
> > At the first glance, gPXE appears to support Prism chipset only, either
> > native PCI or PCMCIA behind PLX9052 bridge.
> 
> I'm not sure where you are looking.  I have a git tree from here:
> 
> 	git://git.etherboot.org/scm/gpxe.git

That's where I was looking.

> The gpxe source file src/drivers/net/prism2_pci.c claims to support
> PCI ID 1260:3873 which is listed as a prism 2.5 device supported by
> drivers/net/wireless/orinoco_pci.c in the linux tree.  Similarly the
> gpxe src/drivers/net/prism2_plx.c claims to support all of the PCI IDs
> listed in drivers/net/wireless/orinoco_plx.c from the linux tree as
> well as one that is not listed there (126c:8030 -- perhaps we should
> add it?).

126c:8030 is in orinoco_nortel.c, and I don't think it can be treated
like plx9052 based bridges.

The code in prism2.c looks similar to linux-wlan-ng, which is
Prism-only.  But on the other hand, the gpxe driver offers only very
basic functionality, which doesn't even include WEP, so it's possible
that non-Prism cards would work.

-- 
Regards,
Pavel Roskin

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread

end of thread, other threads:[~2008-03-27 19:32 UTC | newest]

Thread overview: 6+ messages (download: mbox.gz follow: Atom feed
-- links below jump to the message on this page --
2008-03-25 18:41 Question on Wireless NICs Balaji Rao
2008-03-25 19:32 ` John W. Linville
2008-03-25 21:15   ` Ivo van Doorn
2008-03-26  2:32   ` Pavel Roskin
2008-03-27 15:58     ` John W. Linville
2008-03-27 19:32       ` Pavel Roskin

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