Which wireless USB card have you found works the best in RedHat 8? How easy was it to set up, what version of the kernel worked, and did you have to update the kernel?
Which wireless PCI card worked the best? How easy was it to set up, what version of the kernel worked, and did you have to update the kernel?
I'm looking for a card, and USB would be much better since I can adjust the antennae, but if there isn't one thats easy to use I can get a PCI card. I currently have the Linksys WUSB11 v2.6 (yuck!) and I can't get it working, so i'm thinking about getting a new one.

The v2.6 is an atmel chipset USB card, Linksys is still claiming its a Prism2 chip. If you haven't tried it, the link is here:

http://atmelwlandriver.sourceforge.net/usbtable.html

If you're sick to death of the mess that is Linksys, PCI cards that work right are pretty much anything prism2: the WMP11, as long as its good and old, the DWL520, just the vanilla one, no "+" or "H" or "A" after that. These work with all three driver sets that handle prism2 cards.... the list is pretty long.

If you want to try the long list, its best to start with Jean's page:
http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_...s.drivers.html

Honestly, the one with the easiest setup... the DWL520:

modprobe orinoco_pci
ifconfig eth0 up
iwconfig eth0 essid gobledygook
iwconfig eth0 enc 1234567890
dhcpcd eth0

Cheers,

Finegan

I'm beyond sick of the Linksys mess, I updated my kernel yesterday and managed to mess up grub so I can't get Linux started, when I checked grub.conf with a boot disk everything looked fine.
I'll definitely look into the DWL 520, who makes it?

D-Link, who suck just about as much with their numbering schema as Linksys: the DWL-520+, A, and H varieties are all different chipsets... er, all four of which have support in different ways, but the easiest going has got to be the straight dwl-520. Or, I didn't mention this before, but if you can get a REAL orinoco PCI card, which I know are made, but by whom...? they're kinda rare and a little more expensive, those rock the pants off of prism2 cards, but again I've only ever played with the PCMCIA and the PLX combo flavors.

You went through an entire kernel re-compile to add atmel support? I didn't realize it was that much of a wonky mess. Or was this an update via RPM?

Also you might have a problem compiling newer code into modules against the kernel in RH 7.2, which if I've got my dates right shipped with 2.4.9? There were some serious changes made in how modules interface with networking in 2.4.10 that has made it so some code doesn't backport right. I don't know the specifics, only what I got out of the README from the orinoco_cs source.

Cheers,

Finegan

What happened was that all the people that got it working said you HAD to have 2.4.19 or newer... and I had 2.4.18-13, so I completely recompiled the kernel, only to find out GRUB had somehow got corrupted. When I ran modprobe on the drivers for my Linksys card I kept getting an error that was along the lines of "This module was compiled for 2.4.18-13custom you are running 2.4.18.-13" which isn't true.. i've never recompiled my kernel before this. What i'll do, if I can, is get rid of my Linksys card and get a DWL 520, they seem to be the easiest to get support for.
The only thing is do you know if the dwl520 has as good reception as a USB adapter? I have to adjust my antennae every once in a while, otherwise I get like 50% quality and 100% strength, am I gonna be able to get at least 95/95 on a dwl520?

Can you also check this card, and this card to see if they are the right DWL 520s? I'm more than a little wary after my first Linksys card, and the first one seems to good to be true ($27 after rebate?!)
Thanks!

Yeah that's the right card. I'd report your Grub problem in a different subforum, either Software or Linux-General as I don't know dink about how Grub behaves, I cracked out on LILO a long time ago. I really should learn more about the other boot loaders.

Their signal strength? I dunno, if you were using the linux wlan drivers and reading the signal strength from iwconfig, the 95/95 was a lie, the linux-wlan drivers don't work with wireless extensions at all. I don't know about the atmel drivers... I've never had a USB wireless device to play with. I've only ever gotten to use the DWL-520, DWL-650, WPC11, both Orinocos, the Cabletron Roamabout, a Zoom Air, and the 3com Airconnect (the symbol one, not the x-jack), oh and the PLX adapter for the WPC11. That's one PLX card, 1 pci card and maybe... eight PCMCIA cards total. I'm mostly recommending by reputation I've heard through other threads and a lot of reading....

Cheers,

Finegan

Ok, I ended up formating my HD, which I needed to do anyway.
Then I recompiled the kernel for a second time and it's now working. I haven't got a chance to try the Atmel drivers under 2.4.20, but if they don't work then i'll probably end up getting the DWL 520.
Thanks!