Re: Easy Debian Wireless 101
* Robert D. Crawford <rdc1x@comcast.net> [2005 Oct 26 06:28 -0500]:
> "Michael Perry" <mperry@lnxpowered.org> writes:
>
> > Steve Lamb wrote:
> >
> >> Does anyone have any recommendations for the
> >> simplest card to get working with Debian?
>
> > I think the easiest I have ever done is a orinoco pci adaptor with a
> > gold 11b card in it.
>
> I am not sure if it is an issue with the gold card, or if it affects the
> pci version of the cards, but the orinoco name was attached to several
> cards. This seems not to be a problem until Proxim started making them
> and came out with Rev.4. This one had an Agere chipset that has no
> support from the in-kernel drivers. There is _supposedly_ one driver
> that can be downloaded from Agere for the 2.4.x kernels, but I could not
> compile it. Stay the hell away from the proxim cards.
So far I've had good luck with two different Atheros based adapters and
the Madwifi driver. The first I bought a year ago is a Linksys WPC55AG
an a/b/g capable PCMCIA card. The second is the built in adapter on
an IBM Thinkpad T42.
I build the Madwifi driver against the kernel source configured with the
Debian kernel config file and the driver loads into the stock Debian
kernel with no problems. I generally follow the instructions at:
http://www.marlow.dk/site.php/tech/madwifi
The only problem I've encountered is here at home with a Linksys
BEFW11S AP and WEP. It seems that the wireless tools commands need to
be fed in a certain order that I found through experimentation. Tools
like Kwifimanager don't seem to be able to negotiate the key so I rely
on waproamd and a customized script here at home. On the road with an
open AP (hotel, etc.) Kwifimanager works fine.
If you need a 100% DSFG driver, then an Atheros based card is probably
not for you as Madwifi is built around a proprietary firmware blob that
is loaded by the driver. I don't really see it as a problem because it
isn't much different than if the blob were burned into the card. The
difference here is that the blob can be improved upstream and new
features/bug fixes can be applied without having to flash the
card--always a somewhat chancy proposition. And the blob approach is
pretty much required per FCC regulations on 802.11 devices.
Madwifi works well with Kismet which is an added bonus.
- Nate >>
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