What is a good 802.11g linux compatible PCMCIA adapter?

mpyusko · 08-14-2005, 01:00 PM

I'm getting ready for another Semester of college and my 802.11b adapter crapped out on me. I need a new one for my laptop but I'd like to move up to 802.11g. What is a good PCMCIA adapter that si VERY Linux compatible. I mean one that takes little to no configuration.

Also, in winblows XP, it shows you all the available networks around you. Is there something similar in linux that doesn't take 5 downloaded programs and hors of installation and configuration?

Simon Bridge · 08-15-2005, 06:49 AM

http://ask.slashdot.org/askslashdot/...id=137&tid=106

also see the HCL here.

Some notes:
802.11b - 2.4GHz band - max 3 channels - 11Mbps rate - crowded/popular band
802.11a - 5GHz band - max 8 channels - 54Mbps rate - not in Europe
802.11g - 2.4GHz band - max ? channels - 54Mbps rate - crowded/popular band

g uses the same (OFDM) method as a to get the high speed transfer.
The 2.4 GHz band is also used by bluetooth, telephones, microwave ovens, etc etc etc. These will all interfere.

So it would appear that, unless you are in Europe, you really want type a.

mpyusko · 08-15-2005, 12:21 PM

Unforunatley "A" isn't and option. I need to be able to connect with my campus ("B/G"). "A" isn't a very economical Choice round these parts.

My wife has a Centrino (G) that runs everywhere fine ('cept A). I have an Old Vaio Laptop which requires a PCMCIA for any kind of NIC. In my case, "G" is best.

Actually.....Has anyone had any expeience with a SMC2336W-AG ? It's by SMC.

Simon Bridge · 08-16-2005, 10:31 PM

Well, almost everything wot does G also does B...

Quote:

Unforunatley "A" isn't and option. I need to be able to connect with my campus ("B/G"). "A" isn't a very economical Choice round these parts.

Ah - but you havn't said where "these parts" are you see? (You can stick your location in your profile - something general will suffice

)

Quote:

Also, in winblows XP, it shows you all the available networks around you. Is there something similar in linux that doesn't take 5 downloaded programs and hors of installation and configuration?

You're running slack... hmmm... dunno: in Fedora, the normal network thing just shows it to you the same as the windows thing. You configure for DHCP and workgroup and everything you have access to should wherever network connections normally do.

Quote:

SMC2336W-AG ?

have you looked in the HCL - it's not there, but other SMC cards are there along with lots of stuff about the chipsets they use. I also found this in LQ archives.

This uses the Atheros AR5100X Chipset.

There is supposed to be a driver for it here. (I havn't checked this out.) However, I found another reference from OpenDrivers.com which seems to be windows only (sorry) - however the SMC website may be a goot place to try.

i.e. the card would appear to be well supported.

post-edit
Haha! After messing up on the url - I had a harder look:
I found a thread in this broadband forum by a winXP user who had trouble. One of the replies suggested a linux driver (heh heh) by madwifi. Here's the whole message:

Quote:

Originally from inmuck posting in www.broadbandreports.com (2003-01-29)
The SMC2336W-AG is based om Atheros AR5100X Chipset, which is the same user on Orinico Gold and Linksys WPC51AB Adapters. Though I am not sure about the Drivers mentioned by Pandor See Profile, I have heard about Madwifi drivers work with this chipset you can get that at »sourceforge.net/projects/madwifi/

... does this help?

mpyusko · 08-17-2005, 12:26 PM

I apologize.... I thought my location was in my profile. Rochester, NY (USA)

Well I went to the SMC (not SMB) website and they have two different part #s for the card so not knowing what I get and I've heard stories on some things where "one is, other is not" compatible.

I don't know which is which. is there a car (must be PCMCIA) that is guarenteed to work?

I went to the madwifi link, and it said "This Project Has Not Released Any Files"....

Yes I use Slack 10.1 (I even have the sticker on my vaio).

Thanks Again.

Simon Bridge · 08-18-2005, 03:51 AM

SMC.com have a download site for drivers et al. While some of their products have linux drivers, yours does not. So the SMC site seems to be a waste of time there. (The part number for your card is written on it! However, there are no linux drivers for download for either part number.)

So we are looking at a generic driver for the chipset, or an ndiswrapper for the windows driver.

1. Generic Driver for the chipset:

Quote:

from:http://madwifi.sourceforge.net/
MADWiFi is work in progress and currently there is no production release available yet. This doesn´t mean that you can´t use the driver - but you will need a little knowledge about getting source via CVS, compiling kernel and drivers, and similar stuff.
You should also be aware that, although the CVS versions of MADWiFi usually are pretty stable, bugs may occur here and there. If you run in any trouble be sure to check the section called "It doesn´t work... help!".

Before getting the source, please make sure your system meets the following requirements:

WLAN interface that uses Atheros chipset (this, this or this list might help)
a current kernel version of series 2.4 or 2.6
wireless extensions version 14 or later (version 16 is preferred)
target kernel needs to have sysctl support turned on
crypto API support turned on with HMAC and MD5, if you want to use the 802.1x authenticator
hotplugd, if you want to use a Cardbus card
the utility uudecode is also needed during compilation (distributions usually have this in a package called sharutils)

All conditions fulfilled? Fine, then you are ready to go.

The current version of MADWiFi can be retrieved from CVS with the following command:

Code:

cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/madwifi \
co madwifi

Alternatively you can grab a CVS snapshot as .tar.bz2 or .tar.gz archive. Older versions (ranging back to 2004-09-24) are also available, refer to http://madwifi.otaku42.de for that.

After downloading the source, refer to the README file in the source tree (or read it online). It contains useful instructions about compiling, configuring and trouble-shooting the driver.

2. ndiswrapper?
http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/m...dex.php/List#S
Your card does not appear on their list of confirmed supported cards. There are SMC cards on the list, however, if you want an alternative?

This does not mean that the win driver won't work with NdisWrapper, so could give it a try... that there are other cards with Atheros chipsets would seem encouraging. However, your exact chipset dosn't seem to be present. You should do a more careful search that I did to verify this however.

So, it would appear, after initial optomism, that this card is supported directly in linux only by beta level (CVS) drivers. NdisWrapper support would seem dubious at best. SMC do not release source code, so there is no chance of recompiling under winelibs <sigh>.

npaladin2000 · 08-19-2005, 05:36 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by mpyusko
I'm getting ready for another Semester of college and my 802.11b adapter crapped out on me. I need a new one for my laptop but I'd like to move up to 802.11g. What is a good PCMCIA adapter that si VERY Linux compatible. I mean one that takes little to no configuration.

I recommend buying either an Aetheros-chip-based or Intel-chip-based card. D-Link's cards are mostly Aethros (Their A/B/G card is, I'm 99% sure).

Quote:

Originally posted by mpyusko
Also, in winblows XP, it shows you all the available networks around you. Is there something similar in linux that doesn't take 5 downloaded programs and hors of installation and configuration?

As far as this goes, you've currently got 2 options, both of which are fairly early.

network manager is part of the Fedora/RedHat deal. It's not bad, but not terribly granular. it also controles your wired connection and might disable your wireless when a wire is plugged in, even if you want them both up at once. On the up side, there's some VERY initial support for WPA.
http://people.redhat.com/dcbw/NetworkManager/index.html

The GTK WiFi project limits itself to controlling your wireless, and currently selects APs based on MAC address (meaning you can pick one AP over another). It currently only supports WEP keys, but other than that works VERY much like the Windows utilities. I haven't heard back from the author yet; I've got some ideas for getting it to support WPA but the latest sources aren't posted; have to fork off of the older ones...
http://gtkwifi.sourceforge.net/

There's also something laying around somewhere from Novell's SUSE.

Simon Bridge · 08-19-2005, 05:55 PM

The card he's got is Aetheros chipset - do you know of another source of Aetheros driver that I don't? Do you know that it will work with NdisWrapper? (Since you said

Quote:

I recommend buying either an Aetheros-chip-based or Intel-chip-based card. D-Link's cards are mostly Aethros (Their A/B/G card is, I'm 99% sure).

npaladin2000 · 08-19-2005, 09:53 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Simon Bridge
The card he's got is Aetheros chipset - do you know of another source of Aetheros driver that I don't? Do you know that it will work with NdisWrapper? (Since you said

Most Aethros cards are well supported by the madwifi project. I know for a fact that the D-Link a/b card works fine, and I'm pretty sure the a/b/g card works well too. That's why I recommended D-Link specifically.

madwifi works with most aethros cards actually (Aethros actually supports the project, so it's like having a manufacturer-provided reference driver). It only has trouble with screwey implementations, like my IBM MiniPCI card.

The Intel WiFi chips are well-supported also, but harder to find, and I'm not sure if their g and a/g drivers support WPA yet.

mpyusko · 08-23-2005, 12:44 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Simon Bridge
The card he's got is Aetheros chipset

Actually, The card I have is a SpeedStream ss1021 that crapped out on me. I need a new card but haven't bought one yet because I don't know what is definatley compatible. The SMC2336W-AG is something I found cheap on the internet and was wondering about. It's not set in stone for me to buy. I prefer to research before I buy, it saves me a bigger headache later.

I would just like someone to tell me what card is 100% (or closest) comatible the Slack 10.1 with the 2.4.29 kernel.

Simon Bridge · 08-23-2005, 10:06 PM

In which case - go look in the HCL, that's what it's there for.

mpyusko · 08-25-2005, 05:51 PM

AGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!! SOOO CLOOOOOSE!!!!!!!!

I bought the Belkin F5d7010 card. I went to NDISwrapper, got it, installed it. Installed the XP driver from A-like. Got everything up and running, Browsed my network even.

couldn't get on the internet (minor)

I did the ndiswrapper -m command. YEA For Me! rebooted and it all went nuts! it makes it so far then dumps a scrolling screen on me...... Parse error.......

with and without the card installed. now what?

mpyusko · 08-26-2005, 10:35 AM

I downloaded Knoppix 3.8, tried to use it's ndiswrapper, and it kept giving me errors.

So I went into /etc/modules.conf for my slack, and commented out "alias wlan0 ndiswrapper".

then I rebooted the computer with Slack 10.1. It made it to the cardmgr and hung, I rebooted it, and anoter screen dump (around where the cardmgr & hotplug start but I'm not 100% sure how to tell or capture it if it happens again it's not in dmesg), but then it continued to finish booting.

modprobe ndiswrapper
iwconfig wlan0 essid (blah)
iwconfig wlan0 enc (blah)
ifconfig wlan0 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

It works!!! What is wrong that it won't work at boot?

if I pull the card out of the socket the computer crashes and I have to reboot.

EDIT:

Code:

INIT: Entering runlevel: 3
Going multiuser...
Starting sysklogd daemons:  /usr/sbin/syslogd /usr/sbin/klogd -c 3 -x
Starting PCMCIA services:
  <Probing for PCIC: edit /etc/rc.d/rc.pcmcia>
cardmgr[82]: watching 2 sockets
Activating hardware detection: /etc/rc.d/hotplug start
modules.pcimap unparsable line: snd-ymfpci           0x00001073 0x00000000a 0xffffffff 0xffffffff 0x00000000 0x00000000  RtlAnsiStringToUnicodeString(struct unicode_string *dst,
.
modules.pcimap unparsable line:  struct ansi_string *src,
.
modules.pcimap unparsable line:  BOOLEAN dup):
.
modules.pcimap unparsable line:  STDCALL void RtlInitAnsiString(struct ansi_string *dst, CHAR *src);
.
modules.pcimap unparsable line:  STDCALL void RtlInitString(struct ansi_string *dst, CHAR *src);
.
modules.pcimap unparsable line:  STDCALL void RtlInitUnicodeString(struct unicode_str.

what does this mean?

Continued in: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=357324