Re: Wireless setup

[Bill Moseley <moseley@hank.org>]

At 04:15 AM 06/27/02 -0700, Alexander Yukhimets wrote:
>On Wed, Jun 26, 2002 at 11:25:06PM -0700, Bill Moseley wrote:
>> But the *big* problem now is speed.


>> laptop:/var/log# iwconfig
>> eth1      IEEE 802.11-DS  ESSID:"WLAN"  Nickname:"Prism  I"
>
>Sorry I missed your previous messages but what version of orinoco driver
>that you use? From kernel tree or pcmcia-cs tree? It seems that the driver
>did not recognized your card as Prism II (but only as Prism I).
>Only the latest driver 0.11b (available in the lates pcmcia-cs and
>2.4.19-pre kernels) works reasonably well with your card.
>But again, linux-wlan-ng gives consistently better performance anyway.

Ah, I see: 

  orinoco_cs.c 0.09b (David Gibson <hermes@gibson.dropbear.id.au> and others)

I used the ISO from http://people.debian.org/~blade/XFS-Install/
(2.4.18-bf2.4-xfs).  I just installed the base system from that ISO,
dist-upgrade to woody and did a tasksel laptop (which is apmd, pcmcia-cs,
anacron).

Do you know if I can simply use the pcmcia-cs package from sid?

I'll bet I need to follow Peter Hicks' suggestions, although I was trying
to avoid rebuilding the kernel for now (time and confusion issues on my
part).  I get confused by the mixing of The Debian Way and building from
source.


I have not been that happy with my wireless setup.  The range stinks.  The
signal drops way off just walking into the next room -- and even placing
the access point and laptop outside I can only walk about twenty steps
before signal drops way off.  I've swapped out both the access point and
the card a few times, tried different locations and tried both SMC and
linksys hardware.

http://pcmcia-cs.sourceforge.net/ftp/SUPPORTED.CARDS says about my card:

  [orinoco_cs driver] [x86,axp,ppc,smp]
  ...
    [ PrismII based cards: limited functionality ]
    SMC2632W

I wonder if it would be better in the long run to buy a new card (and
perhaps access point?).  If so, any suggestions on which wireless card?

Buying a new card might be faster than trying to learn about all the
patches and components needed to build a new kernel. ;)

Thanks,




-- 
Bill Moseley
mailto:moseley@hank.org


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