On Sat, 2002-03-16 at 23:34, Kent West wrote: > I've got two Debian (Sid) boxes in different parts of the house. Can I > put in a wireless NIC into each one of them, and them talk to each > other, or must I have a Wireless Access Point as an intermediary? In IBSS mode, also known as ad-hoc mode, nodes can talk to each other with no need for an access point. But two nodes on a network must see each other in order to talk. Having an access point allows you to run your network in BSS mode (also known as infrastructure mode), bringing you a star topology and the possibility of roaming between access points. > Also, as long as I'm on the subject. Typically I'd buy some name brand > I'm more familiar with, like D-Link or Netgear, but the Siemens box > specifically mentions that Linux is a compatible OS. For that reason, > I'd like to throw my money toward Siemens. Any technical reasons not to? Any 802.11 compatible access point will do. Features and performance will vary, but compatibility is more or less assured if the device is compatible with 802.11. Operating systems have nothing to do with that. > And one more: why can't I find a PCI wireless NIC, instead of a PCI > wireless NIC adapter plus a wireless PCMCIA NIC? There are some, but they don't have any advantages over the PCI-PCMCIA adapters, apart a few models providing a reverse SMA or BNC plug (more practical and less expensive than buying a pigtail). Look harder and you will find some : Compaq WL200 (no longer produced, but you will find them on eBay - 100mW output and Prism2 chipset make them very interesting), Cisco Aironet 342 and 352, Dlink DWL520 and 3Com Airconnect 3CRWE777A. 802.11 NICs evidently mostly aim at the laptop market. Wireless NIC on a fixed computer is a very secondary market. Manufacturing dedicated PCI NIC in small quantities is probably more expensive than supplying a generic adapter with the mass produced PCMCIA card. > Thanks (and man! I hope the "inappropriate racist" thread dies soon)! Yes, intolerant people should all be executed.
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