Are There 802.11 Cards That Accept A Wire? 20
Luti asks: "Does anyone know of a company that sells 802.11 dongles, or a PCMCIA card that has both a regular RJ-45 connector and an 802.11 antenna? I need to be able to connect my laptop at school (wireless), and at home through my server (due to price most likely wired). I just can't see the point in either a.) buying 2 pcmcia cards for their current prices, one 802.11 and one regular 10/100mbps, or b.) buying an 802.11 card and base station, or even a second card for peer to peer . Any suggestions? Anyone else in my position?" Interesting thought. I'm sure there are hardware manufacturers making these. Has anyone tried some of these out? What were your experiences, especially with regards to OS support?
jeez (Score:1)
a) fewer pieces to carry around -- good thing.
b) if both capabilities could be used at once, you could, for instance, make a laptop into a base station for other wireless-equipped computers in the near
c) eventually, would be nice because the potential is there for it to be cheaper as a combo card (one chassis, two sought-after capabilites
I think this is a cool idea
timothy
I don't think so (Score:4, Informative)
It doesn't surprise me since the RF part of 802.11 cards takes a lot of room, and there isn't room for an antenna and a dongle or rj45 connector. I'd reccomend you do what I've done...eject one card and plug the other in.
Re:I don't think so (Score:1)
Would you be willing to recommend a card?
I am looking for something that is supported by more utilities. Net Stumbler, sniffers, AirSnort, WSA, and that sort of thing.
I would also *very* much like a removable antenna. I do wireless consulting and the ability to put different antennas on my laptop during a site survey is sweet.
Cheap is also good
My old Aironet 4800 has been a workhorse for a long time, but it is a bit of an oddball. None of the cool tools support it.
Many thanks,
Dan
Re:I don't think so (Score:2)
Lucent
Cisco
Prism
All others are mostly oems of one of the above vendors. I've found the Lucent Orinoco to be well supported under linux, but I think the Cisco Aironet 350 wins hands down.
It has great support under linux and windows (I've got the commercial product AiroPeek from wildpackets and the cisco is a nice sniffer with it). The latest linux cisco driver is supposed to do sniffing, but I haven't tried that yet.
If you pay a little more for the cisco with the antenna connectors you will be happy. Get a cheap mag-mount antenna and drive around the parking lots with airsnort for all sorts of fun.
The prism based nics are nice but support under linux isn't always as good as lucent and cisco. You can get sniffer mode working with the linux-wlan drivers if you apply the patch which I don't have the link for at the moment. I'll reply to my own message when I find it.
The bottom line is I'd buy cisco for nics. The prices are coming down. APs are another story.
Re:I don't think so (Score:2)
Generally... (Score:3, Interesting)
Unless somebody deliberately made a chipset that could go either way, I suspect that a combo-card would be a collision of the guts of a wireless and wired ethernet card with a CardBus bridge to link them. As a result, you would likely end up paying the cost for both cards, plus a premium and be aimed more to be a convenience item instead of a budget item.
Plus, many laptops aimed at business will have built-in ethernet, meaning that it is of limited market interest.
Two is much easier (Score:3, Informative)
I do what you do, but on a larger scale. I have "accumulated" 4 ethernet cards. One a 10baseT/2 with a dongle, one a 100baseT with a connector built in, another 100baseT with a dongle, and an Orinoco (Lucent) 802.11b card. It is by FAR easier to have a different card for each network configuration.
You've got to be asking yourself, why? This is easy. Every one of my networks has a night-and-day difference from the other ones. One network is DHCP, another won't reply unless my MAC and IP are set properly, the wireless is told to only answer a specific IP... and so on. Anyways, in my laptop, the OS knows each network configuration, simply by assigning a new network configuration to each piece of hardware. As soon as you plug it in, it just works. No reconfig, no additional programs... plug the SOB in, and you're networking.
And yes, I've tried all of those icky little Netswitcher-type programs, and none of them work as well as just simply having different hardware for each config. Once it's configured, even a monkey could make it work. It may not be cost effective, but it's reliable as all hell.
maybe Xircom will (Score:1)
The need for an external antenna may be part of why they don't have a WiFi RealPort card, the whole point of that product line is to have ports which are unobtrusive, flush with the laptop case. Or maybe they just can't squeeze all the electronics in yet.
other options (Score:1)
If your laptop has a built-in modem which is in a mini PCI slot, you may be able to pop it out and install a mini PCI Ethernet or even wireless card (tho' I think its best to buy the wireless pre-installed so there's an antenna built-in).
Orinoco has USB and ethernet converters but they aren't really built for portability.
Dell (Score:1)
I don't know if any other notebook manufacturers make use of this mini-PCI slot, but it's quite useful. I'd look into getting one adapter in mini-PCI, and the other via PCMCIA.
Cheers,
levine
What I'd like to see (Score:2)
Instead of having the wireless hardware built into the card, wouldn't it be nice if someone came up with a way to just use a regular ethernet card, and plug in sort of a 'wireless adapter dongle' into it instead of your cat5?
That way, the same card could be used for both, plus the adapter could be made to work with any card. Perhaps this sort of hardware solution could be OS-independent as well...
Re:What I'd like to see (Score:2)
So embed a pc in there. I never said I was concerned about cost. Nor did I ever say that it had to be smaller than a PC card. You can get an embedded PC in something as small as a SIMM. so size isn't a concern for me. What I wanted was something that was flexible, perhaps the size of a Palm Pilot or less, which could handle that sort of thing. I never said it was a simple device, but that's something that the hardware can address, and it need not be my problem then. Remember, Joe User doesn't WANT to have to care how complex 802.11b is - he just wants it to work when he plugs it in.
Re:What I'd like to see (Score:1)
Re:What I'd like to see (Score:2)
That'd be more or less what I'd expect anyway. It'd be useful, but only if they can get it to be easy to use for non-technical folks. People who can either plug the wire in or plug the box in, and voila, they're connected. DHCP ought to be able to handle the rest.
What was involved in booting the thing?
Re:What I'd like to see (Score:2)
I believe they call these access points [pricewatch.com] .
Not likely... (Score:2)
-Adam
Not PCMCIA, but... (Score:2)
I've seen Mini-PCI cards that do this (Gateway and IBM stick in some of their laptops). I'm not certain that they don't require an external antenna, but they might work in a random laptop with a Mini-PCI slot, and no other preparation. The whole idea of Mini-PCI was to make the laptops a little more modular, and let laptop makers get new features to market quicker, after all.