Messages in this thread | | | Date | Tue, 10 Aug 1999 01:25:41 -0700 (PDT) | From | Erik Walthinsen <> | Subject | Re: Wireless ethernet? |
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On Sun, 8 Aug 1999, Anthony Barbachan wrote:
> Yes it is possible. I remember reading about an 11mbit solution in Reseller > News a while back. The iBook supposedly also has a wireless solution though > I'm not sure about the speed. Whether either solution is supported under > Linux, I do not know.
In various form, yes. There are some 11Mbps cards out there now (RadioLAN's been out for years), with varying Linux support. Some companies have hardware you plug a crossover 100Base-T cable into to wire up your machine. That's expensive.
More recent stuff includes Proxim's RangeLAN and Symphony cards, and the big one: Lucent's WaveLAN. WaveLAN is now quite nicely supported for all versions, even with FreeBSD (for those who care <g>). Lucent released the necessary code to build open-soruce drivers, and this has been ported to FreeBSD by a professor around here. There is also a reverse-engineering -based driver around for FreeBSD that may get itself ported to Linux if someone has the time. It has lower-level access to the hardware stuff, which is useful for certain things, like inexpensively determining signal strength.
There are also various cards using the HomeRF spec (1Mbps, lobotimized 802.11), but almost without exception the manufacturers are stupid. WebGear has some hardware that claims 2Mbps, which sounds like the original 802.11 spec. Unknown what the prices are, but I've heard they're working on Linux drivers. I was working on drivers for their previous device (parallel port 900MHz) but have been busy with other things, keeping me from getting it working (funky IRQ racing and stuff). I hope to get that driver finished one of these days, but I don't think they're selling the hardware anymore.
As for the 11Mbps AirPort card (the iBook thing), it is from Lucent, but I haven't heard whether it is the same card Lucent ships now (or rather, same series, the 'Hermes' chip and successors). If it is in the same series, and can be purchase separately from an iBook (I've heard that it might have a custom antenna connector mated to the iBook, which would contain a case-sized antenna), then it should just work with existing drivers. The 'Turbo' series of WaveLAN worked without modification on the HCF-lite drivers (HCF-lite is Lucent's low-level code base). Tests between Linux/Linux and Linux/FreeBSD (with the aforementioned professor), as well between Linux and an ancient Lucent WavePOINT, gave 3.9Mbps on cards that are alternately declared 6 and 11Mbps, depending on who you ask.
For WaveLAN-related fun, you can sign onto the majordomo list wavelan@cse.ogi.edu (cc'd). There are real Lucent people there who actually answer questions. Quite a novelty in the Linux world, let me tell you ;-)
There's more out there, if you search. Just pick an engine and some appropriate keywords <g>
TTYL, Omega
Erik Walthinsen <omega@cse.ogi.edu> - Staff Programmer @ OGI Quasar project - http://www.cse.ogi.edu/DISC/projects/quasar/ Video4Linux Two drivers and stuff - http://www.cse.ogi.edu/~omega/v4l2/ __ / \ SEUL: Simple End-User Linux - http://www.seul.org/ | | M E G A Helping Linux become THE choice _\ /_ for the home or office user
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