Linux and Wireless Cards

[fcgarcia]

Already asked many times but I need simple answer. Cousin starting business with 10 employees. Going Open Source per my request (and can't afford 10 copies of XP and Office).

Will use laptops w/o builtin Wi-fi. Will use SuSe 9.2 but has Xandros, Yoper, and Novell Linux (SuSe 9) as alternatives. I have provided comparison list of popular Windows programs and their Open Source alternative.

Question: What Wireless (802.11g) cards should they buy for accessing their Wireless setup as well as Wi-Fi hotspots. These are not techie folks and could not compile "Hello World".

Thanks for "listening" and for your time.

FCG

[kevinh]

Since those machines are for a business, you might also consider CentOS 4 (www.centos.org), built from RedHat Enterprise Linux 4 source code--RHEL 4 in everything but name. CentOS 4 has pre-built modules already included for the Intel Pro 2100B and 2200BG wireless cards. Just copy the firmware to the proper directory, create the config files, and you are off. CentOS 4 with the Intel card runs great on my T42.

Kevin

[AndreasMeier]

Take care of buying cards with wpa encryption !
I have good experience with the intel cards (centrino build-in) and an old netgear MA401 card. Both are working very well.
Regards,
Andreas

[stgreek]

Your best bet are cards that use an Orinoco/Lucent/Agere chipset (like an old netgear) or the cisco cards. The Orinoco/Lucent/Agere is essentially the same chipset, and was the first chipset that had fully open-source drivers, and therefore has been tested the most. As for Cisco, if you can get the Cisco Aironet 340/350 cards for cheap at ebay go for it, as they are pretty much guaranteed not to cause problems. Intel cards are OK, unless you want to use encryption, in which case it is a hit or miss case.

Hope this helps
Stavros

[fcgarcia]

Thank you all for your comments.

FCG

[gattler]

I have the chance to get an Atheros Wifi Card against the build-in Intel 2200 Wifi in my T42. What do you think is better/easier (for Linux) ?

[gattler]

anyone a clue?

[dlichterman]

I have the DLink xtreme G stuff and it now works under Knoppix4.0!!!! It is a atheros based chipset as far as I can tell.

[kgorilla]

I have the chance to get an Atheros Wifi Card against the build-in Intel 2200 Wifi in my T42. What do you think is better/easier (for Linux) ?

info about the 2200 and linux here.. http://thinkwiki.org/wiki/MiniPCI_slot

[carbon_unit]

I am using Xandros 3.02 with an Intel 220bg and it works well. I use 256 bit WPA encryption at home and it works fine, The only problem is switching from an encrypted connection to an unencrypted connection requires a reboot. Switching to an encrypted connection works fine. Roaming using "any" for an SSID and no encryption works fine. It just picks up what ever signal is available.

[Volker]

For the record, ipw2100 / ipw2200 are now in the official kernel, starting with version 2.6.14.

The only problem is switching from an encrypted connection to an unencrypted connection requires a reboot.

I've never seen that kind of bug. Are you sure that you properly disable encryption (iwconfig ethX key off)? You might want to try a newer version of the driver.

[carbon_unit]

It is not too big of a problem for me. I use the encryption at home and before I leave I turn off the encryption and shutdown. When I boot up later it is fine. Most place I go to don't use encryption no matter how much I preach to them.
Xandros will probably release a new version next month if they follow the previous release cycle.