[olug] PCI Wireless

[Sean Edwards]

Well, I finally got around to messing with the Linksys
WAP11 PCI card from Jay.

First of all, I had to figure out how to load the
Windows driver.  The two options were the Linuxant
driverloader, and Open Source ndiswrapper.  Although I
had all the pieces, the Windows driver and the card,
Linuxant wanted $20 for a license.  Needless to say, I
went with ndiswrapper.

It was pretty easy to load ndiswrapper with the
Windows driver, and configuring it with iwconfig was
fairly easy too.

Setting up the wireless network as ad-hoc was very
simple, no surprises there.  I even discovered the
wireless network with KisMac on my G4.  Then things
went bad.  Even though the the network information was
broadcasting, I could not ping either remote end of
the wireless connection.

As it turns out, there are a couple of versions of the
Linksys WAP11 PCI card.  One version uses a Prism 2
chip set, while the newer version uses a Broadcom chip
set.  I also found out that the Prism 2 chip set
version of the card can run as a Host Access Point
with Linux, and the Broadcom chip set version of the
card can not.  It appears to be a problem which starts
with Broadcom not providing software or documentation
to the Linux community to facilitate drivers for this
card.

I am sure the Linksys WAP11 PCI Broadcom card will
work fine in my Linux desktop PC to access a WAP of
some sort, but I don't have a wireless access point
right now to test it. (I was trying to create one!)

-=Sean Edwards=-





		
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