Re: Stupid wireless questions
On 4 Sep, this message from Rogério Brito echoed through cyberspace:
> I'll probably be saving some money the next few months up to
> Christmas to buy me things for wireless access.
:-)
> 1 - Is the airport card (the one that goes inside the iBook)
> completely supported under Linux?
Has been commented extensively... Has always worked well for me.
> 2 - If one would purchase a PCMCIA card for a x86 notebook,
> which brands would be recommended, regarding the quality
> of support under Linux (and also availability)?
I also own a Cisco Aironet PCM350 card (don't know whether it's price is
interesting re. other cards), which works top-class as well, and which
has a _much_ better range than the built-in Airport in my TiBook.
> 3 - Can anything base station be used in place of Apple's
> expensive base station? Would there be any loss of
> functionality?
No, not right away. There are various modes of operation of a wireless
network: managed, unmanaged, ... I forget all the names. Anyway, when
you run an access point, most of the time you'll run in managed mode,
where all traffic from client A to client B goes _through_ the base
station. At the same time, the base station does bridging between
wireless and wired.
This 'managed' mode requires software support that is, AFAIK, not
available in _any_ Linux driver for wireless cards. The hardware is the
same, though.
> I'm not exactly sure if I understand the concept of a base
> station. To me, all descriptions that I read sound just like a
> dedicated router (and possibly doing NAT) with ability of
> connecting via waves (and possibly through ethernet). Is that
> right?
Bridging between wired and wireless, and doing routing/NAT towards a
dial-up Internet connection, with dial-on-demand functionality.
> If it is, then a base station could be substituted with, say,
> an old computer with another (cheap) wireless card, right?
For some applications, in non-managed mode, maybe. Not in managed mode,
AFAIK.
> Sorry for asking questions so basic here, but my training in
> the area of networks is not as strong as I'd like, and I have
> never even *seen* or used a wireless network in my life (not
> common here where I live) and I'm just speculating if I should
> buy the gadgets necessary after I graduate or if it will be a
> better investment to use the money saved for something else
> (like books).
Go read Jean Tourrilhes' pages about wireless stuff:
http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/
Cheers
Michel
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michel Lanners | " Read Philosophy. Study Art.
23, Rue Paul Henkes | Ask Questions. Make Mistakes.
L-1710 Luxembourg |
email mlan@cpu.lu |
http://www.cpu.lu/~mlan | Learn Always. "
Reply to: