Wireless LAN Devices For Linux? 15
kemster writes "I've seen a few articles on different Wireless ethernet devices which are supported under Linux, but I'd like to know what people's experiences with them are. I'd like to get a wireless ethernet card for my laptop, and Linux support is a must, but I'd also like something that isn't too expensive and has decent range and speed. Does anyone have any suggestions? What have other people used? I'd love any suggestions and/or links people have to products." We've discussed this issue over a year ago and the market for wireless networks has grown dramatically since then. Has the intervening time changed anything when it comes to wireles options for Linux?
Oddly enough... (Score:1)
What I would ask is this: what's the _cheapest_ supported card? A year or so ago, I bought 2Mbit wireless cards from Webgear at $140 per set of two cards. Recently, I don't think I've seen any wireless LAN cards much under $150 for one card. Admittedly, they're 11Mbit cards now, but still... it seems like they should be cheaper than they are. Probably I'm just not looking hard enough.
And while I'm at it, does anyone make a cheap access point? I have an ad-hoc network that works well enough, but I keep wondering if I should get a real access point - and then I keep seeing the extreme price tags on those devices, and shaking my head.
Lucent Wavelan/IEEE (Score:3)
I bought the RG-1000 gateway and an Orinoco silver card a few days ago and after a bit of fiddling had my linux notebook up and running at 11mbs. The windows client software was better at things like measuring signal strength & noise with a shiny little GUI. Range and performance seem to be very good. One problem with the RG gatway product is that it requires a Windoes system to set up the initial configuration.
URL would be www.wavelan.com [wavelan.com].
Another option depending on driver ability would be the 802.11b stuff from Compaq. I noticed that they are selling their gateway software CD for $125 which means you can build your own access point on an existing system for the cost of the software and a PCI wireless card.
Re:Oddly enough... (Score:1)
Re:My Research So Far (Includes Access Points) (Score:2)
-Todd
Intersil Chipset (Score:2)
http://www.linux-wlan.com/linux-wlan/
Re:My Research So Far (Includes Access Points) (Score:1)
the Apple Airport runs slightly less than $300 while the RG1000 runs a bit more than that.
both of these have Lucent silver cards inside them so they support antennas and what not. they can also be upgraded to Lucent gold cards rather trivialy.
I like the lucent cards as they are support on Mac, FreeBSD, Linux, Windows 95/98, Windows NT, and Windows CE.
what I have found to be the main difference between cheap 802.11b cards and their expensive brethren is antenna sensitivity. the more you pay, the better the built in antenna is.
here [networkcomputing.com] is a decent article comparing 802.11b solutions.
Grimlaf
My Research So Far (Includes Access Points) (Score:5)
I'm looking around at both cards and access points with linux compatibility, here's what I've found. It seems 802.11b wireless networking is definitely getting cheaper and a number of decent products have been showing up at half previous typical prices. D-Link and SMC are leading the low end of the market with decent quality products and at least stated linux support and Orinico/Lucent and Aironet/Cisco are the leaders if you want a more robust feature set for your access point (in particular, support for external antennas).
PCMCIA Cards
Access Points
For those who are also interested in what's going on with access points, including linux support on configuration:
Unfortunately, neither of these have the antenna adapter that some of the Lucent Orinoco (formerly WaveLAN) access points [wavelan.com] feature, but they also don't cost $700+ (its more for the 2 radio model). Not really much of an issue for household use (unless you have a multilevel apartment with concrete flooring), but if you want to cover multiple houses, roam around farther outdoors, or set up a free wireless LAN [salon.com] (slashdot discussion [slashdot.org]) for people in the area [SF for me] [sflan.com] (I could run a really popular access point, living across the street from Moscone). There are a number of other good access points from Cisco/Aironet, HP, Intel, etc., but these are the standouts for price/performance in my research.
Regards, RJS
Semi-cheap reliable speed (Score:2)
The parts were cheapest at PC Connection about 6 months ago.
Re:Oddly enough... (Score:1)
I bought my Webgear pair last Spring for $130 for the two cards (and two ISA adapters). Haven't seen anything near that price since. Both are installed in Linux boxes, one running a 2.0.x kernel and one 2.2.y, one on the second floor and one in the basement. As I recall, setting it up took a couple of evenings; would have gone faster but I had to install several pieces of software. I seem to get between 75 Kbytes/sec and 95 KBytes/sec on file transfers fairly consistently, which I regard as pretty good considering all the metal clutter between the two and the max rating on the devices.
The older proprietary wireless links and the 802.11 stuff seem to be disappearing in favor of the faster (and more expensive) 802.11b. When I decide that the current link is not fast enough, I'll probably drop 10BaseT down the outside of the house rather than trying the more expensive wireless stuff.
SMC cheap 128 bit WEP? (Score:1)
http://www.smc.com/smc/drivers/manuals/wireless/26 32.pdf [smc.com]
Typically other companies like Lucent charge extra for the 128 bit cards. SMC's access point (as you would guess) also supports 128 bit.
Actually, how does D-Link's 40 bit WEP work with other products? I'm accustomed to Orinoco Silver cards which support 64 bit WEP. Can other products use weaker keys to match what the D-Link is capable of or can the D-Link onlly use its WEP with other products that support specifically 40 bit keys? I suspect the latter. That would be important if WEP is required in an environment.
Re:Lucent Wavelan/IEEE (Score:1)
If you want to save a few bucks and you really don't need an access point (or you want to use an existing IP Masq box) this will work fine for you.
Re:SMC cheap 128 bit WEP? (Score:1)
40 vs 60 bit WEP:
40 bit WEP uses 40 bits of secret key and 24 bits of shared key. Although it is really 64 bits of encryption, it has traditionally been called 40 bit WEP to get around the old encryption export restriction. 128 bit WEP uses 104 bits of secret key and 24 bits of shared key.
wireless lan howto (Score:2)
www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/Linux/ [hp.com]
It has the howto plus hundreds of links to related info around the web. Check it out!
maken
Re:Oddly enough... (Score:1)
Re:My Research So Far (Includes Access Points) (Score:1)
1. Add some information to
card "D-Link DWL-650"
manfid 0x0156, 0x0002
bind "wvlan_cs"
(In my file, this is around line 280, between the entries for "D-Link DE-650" and "DynaLink L10C Ethernet".)
2. Run 'netconf' (the network configuration part of linuxconf) and under Basic Host information add an adaptor left otherwise blank but with 'wvlan0' filled in as the interface name.