Re: wireless card

["Paolo Alexis Falcone" <pfalcone@gmail.com>]

On 2/23/06, Lubos Vrbka <lubos.vrbka@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>If I was to buy a new wireless pccard, it'll definitely get one with
> >>>support under the vanilla kernel...cause I'm lazy :). It's very easy to
> >>>install ndiswrapper module by following its wiki but is *super* easy via
> >>>module-assistant.
> >>
> >>for such cards, ndiswrapper is not needed, i guess... or am i wrong?
> >>
> >>regards,
> >>
> >
> > You're correct, ndiswrapper isn't needed by cards with native support
> > under the vanilla kernel.
> >
> obviously, there aren't too many possibilities (2.6.15 kernel):
> Cisco/Aironet 34X/35X/4500/4800 PCMCIA cards (AIRO_CS)
>         they seems to support only b/
> Planet WL3501 PCMCIA cards (PCMCIA_WL3501)
> Intersil Prism GT/Duette/Indigo PCI/Cardbus (PRISM54)
>         several cards have this chip inside
>
> which one of these three would you recommend? or maybe going with
> ndiswrapper would be an easier way...

The Intel wireless cards (which are already in the kernel) do support 802.11g.
For the other cards, you'd have to look for their open source projects
(for atheros chipsets use the madwifi drivers + their binary HAL; then
the rt2x00 drivers for the ralink rt2500 chipset). We're still waiting
for the maturity and inclusion of the libieee80211 stack (used by the
Intel cards) so that every wifi card would have a standard library of
functions.

--
Paolo Alexis Falcone
pfalcone@gmail.com