WLAN drivers

WLAN drivers

[Panagiotis Issaris]

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Hi,

I'm trying to decide which wireless card to purchase, and I find it
quite difficult to know which cards are support "out-of-the-box" with
recent Linux kernels. I've found various lists of WLAN cards on
websites, on which people report success stories, but I still think
it's rather confusing.

A year ago I bought a card (WG111), which was supposed to be supported
by an open source driver, but in the end I still had to use ndiswrapper
as there appeared to be two [*] different versions of that same product.
One used the chipset which could be used with an open source driver, the
other -ofcourse the version I bought- is not supported by any open
source driver.

So, basically, getting a product name or number doesn't seem to be
enough to be sure to buy a card which will work with a unpatched Linux
kernel.

Furthermore, it appears the cards that are supported, are often
supported by out-of-kernel drivers, which is a tad less convenient, and
gives me some concerns on whether the driver will always be available
for recent kernels.

And, finally, it seems a lot of cards that get recommendations, are
based on rather old chipsets, which are unlikely to be still sold today.



And now the reason I'm sending this to this mailing list: Which wireless
network cards are you all using and which ones would you recommend? Is
anyone using USB wireless network cards (without using ndiswrapper)?


With friendly regards,
Takis


[*] At that time, now I think there's even three different versions,
possibly using different chipsets.

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Re: WLAN drivers

[Alistair John Strachan]

On Friday 03 February 2006 12:18, Panagiotis Issaris wrote:
[snip]
> And, finally, it seems a lot of cards that get recommendations, are
> based on rather old chipsets, which are unlikely to be still sold today.

This is especially true of the once ubiquitous prism chipsets.

> And now the reason I'm sending this to this mailing list: Which wireless
> network cards are you all using and which ones would you recommend? Is
> anyone using USB wireless network cards (without using ndiswrapper)?

In my experience, you're simply best going to either http://prism54.org/ (if 
you can find one still) or http://madwifi.org/ (modern cards, likely to be 
purchasable), and then buying one of the cards on the "known to work" lists. 
If you buy the wrong revision, return it.

There's really nothing Linux can do about vendors who annoyingly change their 
entire product description (and chipset) between revisions.

Personally I've successfully used a 3Com OfficeConnect 11g 1.0 (probably 
discontinued) which uses the prism54 driver, Intel's Centrino IPW2200BG and 
Proxim's new Orinoco Gold cardbus card (with the madwifi.org drivers).

Keywords for _modern_ Linux supported wireless chipsets are still (to my 
knowledge) atheros, atmel, prism54, and most recently broadcom, though that 
support is currently immature.

Also possibly the Ralink chipsets are worth considering, they seem to have 
been pretty open with respect to drivers, and the cards are dirt cheap.

-- 
Cheers,
Alistair.

'No sense being pessimistic, it probably wouldn't work anyway.'
Third year Computer Science undergraduate.
1F2 55 South Clerk Street, Edinburgh, UK.

Re: WLAN drivers

[Lee Revell]

On Fri, 2006-02-03 at 12:35 +0000, Alistair John Strachan wrote:
> In my experience, you're simply best going to either
> http://prism54.org/ (if you can find one still) or http://madwifi.org/
> (modern cards, likely to be purchasable), and then buying one of the
> cards on the "known to work" lists. If you buy the wrong revision,
> return it. 

Isn't madwifi a proprietary driver?  Are things really so bad that
people on LKML are recommending users buy this junk?

Lee

Re: WLAN drivers

[Stephen Clark]

Lee Revell wrote:

>On Fri, 2006-02-03 at 12:35 +0000, Alistair John Strachan wrote:
>  
>
>>In my experience, you're simply best going to either
>>http://prism54.org/ (if you can find one still) or http://madwifi.org/
>>(modern cards, likely to be purchasable), and then buying one of the
>>cards on the "known to work" lists. If you buy the wrong revision,
>>return it. 
>>    
>>
>
>Isn't madwifi a proprietary driver?  Are things really so bad that
>people on LKML are recommending users buy this junk?
>
>Lee
>
>-
>To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
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>Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/
>
>  
>
I'd been waiting for along time to get a wireless card for my Linux 
system at a reasonable price. A couple of weeks ago CompUSA had zyxel 
g102's fo 19.95 and  zyxel  base stations
for 19.95 - no rebates were involved:) So I got one of each. The pc-card 
uses an atheros chip
which is supported by MadWifi. The module includes a binary hal module 
that keeps the
card from being abused - programmed out of FCC specs. Why is so 
different from a card that
has to have firmware loaded on it that in essence does the same thing - 
prevents the driver
writer from programming the card out of FCC specs.

And Atheros stepped up to the table and provide this hal binary piece.

My $.02
Steve

Re: WLAN drivers

[Lee Revell]

On Fri, 2006-02-03 at 13:18 -0500, Stephen Clark wrote:
> The module includes a binary hal module 
> that keeps the
> card from being abused - programmed out of FCC specs. Why is so 
> different from a card that
> has to have firmware loaded on it that in essence does the same thing
> - 
> prevents the driver
> writer from programming the card out of FCC specs. 

Big difference - firmware runs on the device, on the other side of a
bus, while a binary driver runs in the same CPU in kernel context.

I don't buy the FCC argument - after all there are completely open
drivers for other chipsets and I don't recall the FCC coming after the
distributors.

Lee

Re: WLAN drivers

[Luke-Jr]

On Friday 03 February 2006 18:18, Stephen Clark wrote:
> The module includes a binary hal module that keeps the card from being
> abused - programmed out of FCC specs. Why is so different from a card that
> has to have firmware loaded on it that in essence does the same thing -
> prevents the driver writer from programming the card out of FCC specs.

How about let the user decide to comply with FCC (or not)? Maybe it's been 
exported? Maybe the user has a hack to make it receive an AM radio signal? 
Plenty of legal possibilities.

Re: WLAN drivers

[Alistair John Strachan]

On Friday 03 February 2006 18:06, Lee Revell wrote:
> On Fri, 2006-02-03 at 12:35 +0000, Alistair John Strachan wrote:
> > In my experience, you're simply best going to either
> > http://prism54.org/ (if you can find one still) or http://madwifi.org/
> > (modern cards, likely to be purchasable), and then buying one of the
> > cards on the "known to work" lists. If you buy the wrong revision,
> > return it.
>
> Isn't madwifi a proprietary driver?  Are things really so bad that
> people on LKML are recommending users buy this junk?

Yes.

-- 
Cheers,
Alistair.

'No sense being pessimistic, it probably wouldn't work anyway.'
Third year Computer Science undergraduate.
1F2 55 South Clerk Street, Edinburgh, UK.

Re: WLAN drivers

[Joel Jaeggli]

On Fri, 3 Feb 2006, Alistair John Strachan wrote:

> On Friday 03 February 2006 18:06, Lee Revell wrote:
>> On Fri, 2006-02-03 at 12:35 +0000, Alistair John Strachan wrote:
>>> In my experience, you're simply best going to either
>>> http://prism54.org/ (if you can find one still) or http://madwifi.org/
>>> (modern cards, likely to be purchasable), and then buying one of the
>>> cards on the "known to work" lists. If you buy the wrong revision,
>>> return it.
>>
>> Isn't madwifi a proprietary driver?  Are things really so bad that
>> people on LKML are recommending users buy this junk?
>
> Yes.

intel 2200 or 2915 though they're only available in minicpi flavors as far 
as I know.

>

-- 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Joel Jaeggli  	       Unix Consulting 	       joelja@darkwing.uoregon.edu
GPG Key Fingerprint:     5C6E 0104 BAF0 40B0 5BD3 C38B F000 35AB B67F 56B2

Re: WLAN drivers

[Lee Revell]

On Fri, 2006-02-03 at 19:14 +0000, Alistair John Strachan wrote:
> On Friday 03 February 2006 18:06, Lee Revell wrote:
> > On Fri, 2006-02-03 at 12:35 +0000, Alistair John Strachan wrote:
> > > In my experience, you're simply best going to either
> > > http://prism54.org/ (if you can find one still) or http://madwifi.org/
> > > (modern cards, likely to be purchasable), and then buying one of the
> > > cards on the "known to work" lists. If you buy the wrong revision,
> > > return it.
> >
> > Isn't madwifi a proprietary driver?  Are things really so bad that
> > people on LKML are recommending users buy this junk?
> 
> Yes.
> 

Wow.  Doomsday prediction to doomsday in what, 2 months?  Is that some
kind of record? ;-)

Lee

Re: WLAN drivers

[Lee Revell]

On Fri, 2006-02-03 at 12:35 +0000, Alistair John Strachan wrote:
> and most recently broadcom, though that 
> support is currently immature.

Many people on the ubuntu users list report the CVS versions work great,
although the in-kernel one is obsolete already - it seems to be coming
along fast.

Lee

Re: WLAN drivers

[Denis Vlasenko]

On Friday 03 February 2006 14:18, Panagiotis Issaris wrote:
> And now the reason I'm sending this to this mailing list: Which wireless
> network cards are you all using and which ones would you recommend? Is
> anyone using USB wireless network cards (without using ndiswrapper)?

http://195.66.192.167/linux/acx_patches/current/README
http://195.66.192.167/linux/acx_patches/current_sm/README
--
vda

Re: WLAN drivers

[Jan Kiszka]

Hi Takis!

2006/2/3, Panagiotis Issaris <takis.issaris@uhasselt.be>:
> And now the reason I'm sending this to this mailing list: Which wireless
> network cards are you all using and which ones would you recommend? Is
> anyone using USB wireless network cards (without using ndiswrapper)?
>

I can recommend RalinkTech-based USB dongles. I have an Asus WL-167g
running 24/7 in ad-hoc mode with the "oldgen" driver. It's quite
stable, which means that I once in a few weeks have to unload/reload
the driver to get it working again. Might be ad-hoc-related which is
problematic with many drivers I saw so far. The driver project
(http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com) currently aims at a cleaner revison,
but that one is not yet usable.

Additionally, RalinkTech is quite open towards the community. We
easily got support for an ongoing work to write an RTnet rt2500 driver
- low-level real-time WLAN hacking...

Cheers,
Jan

Re: WLAN drivers

[Pete Zaitcev]

On Fri, 3 Feb 2006 12:35:30 +0000, Alistair John Strachan <s0348365@sms.ed.ac.uk> wrote:

> > And now the reason I'm sending this to this mailing list: Which wireless
> > network cards are you all using and which ones would you recommend? Is
> > anyone using USB wireless network cards (without using ndiswrapper)?
> 
> In my experience, you're simply best going to either http://prism54.org/ (if 
> you can find one still)

You can't get a fullmac card anymore, but softmac is still available
 http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?EDC=543916
It's a gen1, too.

> Keywords for _modern_ Linux supported wireless chipsets are still (to my 
> knowledge) atheros, atmel, prism54, and most recently broadcom, though that 
> support is currently immature.

Intel is the king, dude. Get a 2200. Uses in-tree drivers, too.

-- Pete

Re: WLAN drivers

[Alistair John Strachan]

On Friday 03 February 2006 19:14, Pete Zaitcev wrote:
> On Fri, 3 Feb 2006 12:35:30 +0000, Alistair John Strachan 
<s0348365@sms.ed.ac.uk> wrote:
> > > And now the reason I'm sending this to this mailing list: Which
> > > wireless network cards are you all using and which ones would you
> > > recommend? Is anyone using USB wireless network cards (without using
> > > ndiswrapper)?
> >
> > In my experience, you're simply best going to either http://prism54.org/
> > (if you can find one still)
>
> You can't get a fullmac card anymore, but softmac is still available
>  http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?EDC=543916
> It's a gen1, too.
>
> > Keywords for _modern_ Linux supported wireless chipsets are still (to my
> > knowledge) atheros, atmel, prism54, and most recently broadcom, though
> > that support is currently immature.
>
> Intel is the king, dude. Get a 2200. Uses in-tree drivers, too.

I agree, but this:

a)	Still uses proprietary firmware.
b)	Is made only in mini-pci versions (I think?).

-- 
Cheers,
Alistair.

'No sense being pessimistic, it probably wouldn't work anyway.'
Third year Computer Science undergraduate.
1F2 55 South Clerk Street, Edinburgh, UK.

Re: WLAN drivers

[Lee Revell]

On Fri, 2006-02-03 at 19:22 +0000, Alistair John Strachan wrote:
> I agree, but this:
> 
> a)      Still uses proprietary firmware.
> b)      Is made only in mini-pci versions (I think?). 

I think the number of people bothered by proprietary firmware is
vanishingly small compared to those bothered by proprietary drivers.

Lee

Re: WLAN drivers

[David Gómez]

Hi Pete,

On Feb 03 at 11:14:23, Pete Zaitcev wrote:
> > knowledge) atheros, atmel, prism54, and most recently broadcom, though that 
> > support is currently immature.
> 
> Intel is the king, dude. Get a 2200. Uses in-tree drivers, too.

King of firmware restarts you meant... ;)

cheers,

-- 
David Gómez                                      Jabber ID: davidge@jabber.org

Re: WLAN drivers

[Alessandro Suardi]

On 2/3/06, Panagiotis Issaris <takis.issaris@uhasselt.be> wrote:

[snip]

> And now the reason I'm sending this to this mailing list: Which wireless
> network cards are you all using and which ones would you recommend? Is
> anyone using USB wireless network cards (without using ndiswrapper)?

I have had no problem with a USR2210 PC Card for my Dell laptop,
 running the soon-to-be-in-mainline ACX drivers by Andi Mohr and
 more recently Denis Vlasenko. This driver is at the moment in -mm.

The newer laptop runs an Intel 2200BG with in-kernel drivers fine, apart
 from not dealing well with being put in monitor mode (firmware restarts
 every few seconds gobbling 70% CPU even with very low traffic). As a
 matter of fact, current drivers won't even allow you to put the card in
 monitor mode - you have to explicitly enable the code by editing the
 source files; that's intentional as the developers know about the issue.

--alessandro

 "Somehow all you ever need is, never really quite enough, you know"

   (Bruce Springsteen - "Reno")