Re: Wireless Support

[mike808@users.sourceforge.net]

> I have long been considering getting a wireless pcmcia card for my
> laptop.

Tired of being "wired"? <g>

> I was just in Walmart and saw a DLink WPC11 for 25$.

I'll just say you get your money's worth. It's an 802.11b card. Nothing
spectacular in terms of an antenna. No external antenna connectors. And it's
the run-of-the-mill 30mW max output.

All Orinoco cards have external connectors. So do the Senao's. All of them
can be hacked with a soldering iron to make a connector, but it's cheaper to
just pick a card with one already on it from the mfr.

> Is this a good deal for this card and how well is is supported in linux?

It should be fine. The WPC11 card (like all the other D-Link cards) uses
the pcnet_cs driver, which is for the NS8390 chipset. Orinoco's and Senao's
use the PRISM-II chipset, for example.

You may have to hack your /etc/pcmcia/config file to add an entry for your
card, based on the info you get from 'cardctl ident'. You may have to
hack /etc/pcmcia/wireless.opts to match your MAC address for the rest
of the configuration.

But that's all par for the course in 802.11b-land.

> Is there a wireless howto outthere somewhere?

Um, as in "google:linux wireless how-to" in Konqueror?
http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/Linux/Linux.Wireless.html

> Any recommendations on a low-cost WAP?

The one at your neighbor's house? :=)

You could ask Steve Pritchard over at KSPEI.com for some options and pricing.

The Lucent/Avaya/Agere RG-1000 (or whatever it's called now) is an OK unit.

A really low-cost WAP is to get a PCI PCMCIA adapter and a PRISM-II chipset
card. There are Host AP drivers for the PRISM-II chips. Add Linux and
you have a field-upgradeable WAP that can do DHCP, IPsec, PPTP, whatever.

As for security, the WEP (Wired Equivalency Protocol), commonly in "gold"
and "silver" flavors, is defeatable with not too much effort for the
paranoid. See http://www.stlwireless.net/ for more info.

And that's also the home of the St. Louis Wireless group, and there's a
mailing list too.

With any WAP product, you get what comes with it, most are not easy to upgrade
the firmware. They usually come with DHCP and NAT or operate in "bridge" mode.
They usually do NOT do PPTP or IPsec or encrypted protocols other than WEP.
Some have firewalls and hubs/switches built-in, so that might be convenient.

If you hook a WAP to a Linux box (e.g. your firewall), you probably want
it to run in straight "bridge" mode, and do all the NAT, DHCP and IPsec stuff
at the firewall, and not on the WAP unit.

Almost all are "managed" via direct connection, a web interface, or SNMP
for the fancy ones, and by usually a Windows-only client using undocumented
SNMP for the cheap ones.

Let us know about your progress.

Check out http://www.blackhelo.com/wireless for some maps and other info.
The site is by Chris Gillham, an avid wireless dude.

Mike808/

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http://www.valuenet.net



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