wireless

[Scot L. Harris]

On Sun, 2004-06-13 at 20:49, adam stokes wrote:
> Watcher wrote:
> 
> >  
> > Having a bit of a problem getting my wireless LAN card on my laptop to 
> > work. It is a Microsoft (sorry) MN720. Any suggestions or do I need to 
> > look at getting another card? This one was given to me so I won't be 
> > out anything.
> >  
> > Thanks
> > C-man
> >  
> 
> http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?s=&forumid=8&threadid=181814
> 
> http://www.linuxant.com/driverloader/
> 
> read the first link, then proceed to second. hope this helps, i have not 
> had any experience with wireless yet perhaps someone else could shed 
> some more light on this
> 
> adam stokes

I recently went through this dance with my laptop and a Dlink DWL-G650
card.  What I recommend is that you figure out which chipset your card
has then search for a project that supports that chipset.  In my case
the DWL-G650 uses a prism chipset.  I found the prism54 project had
drivers which supported this.  

Was able to get things up and running fairly quickly after that.  I
still don't think the DWL-G650 is fully integrated.  In the network
config tool it is not listed correctly but you can modify all of the
wireless options and works well with WEP and kismet.  (at least as much
as I have tested with those).

All in all wireless support is a weak spot for Linux in general.  I
believe most of the problem is getting the manufacturers to either
provide drivers for linux or provide the API information so drivers can
be written.  Until then we are left with projects that have to either
reverse engineer things or use things like ndiswrappers to make windows
drivers work with linux.  The other part of the problem is that
manufacturers have a track record of changing chip sets in the same line
of cards making it harder to get the right drivers.

As such I don't expect this issue to change any time soon.

-- 
Scot L. Harris
webid at cfl.rr.com

Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking,
unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a book.
		-- Edward Gibbon