Wifi and Linux (Was: [Gllug] Linux on Desktop )

[Ryan Cartwright]

Dan Kolb wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 13, 2007 at 09:36:23AM +0000, Ryan Cartwright wrote:
>> For example I have two Netgear WG511 PCMCIA cards. Both are version 2 of
>> the card, the first one I bought (having researched first) has a prism
>> chipset and works well with the prism54 driver. The second one (which I
>> bought six months later and "knowing" the card worked) has a different
>> chipset (Marvell) for which there is no free software drivers[1]. I had
>> to resort to ndiswrapper and the supplied W2K driver - which is not what
>> I wanted to do[2]. I'd prefer not to but as this card is not used as
>> often I am putting up with the ndiswrapper workaround for now.
> 
> This is where I can be really irritating and state that according to the
> OpenBSD hardware list, OpenBSD does support the WG511, WG511v2 and WG511v3
> cards without having to resort to hacks like ndiswrapper. The only caveat is
> that the firmware is non-free, and has to be downloaded separately.

The prism cards (v1 and v2) require firmware under Linux too - there are
two versions of non-free firmware and an attempt at a free one as well.
The v3 card apparently works under Linux with the islsm driver (and
firmware).
(http://daemonizer.de/prism54/wg511/ [1])

With regards v2 support I'd imagine this to be the same way that v2
works under Linux (e.g. it depends what chipset you have on your card).
Unless, of course, you know that the Marvell chipset is supported by
OpenBSD?

On a side note and maybe a little OT: I notice you said OpenBSD
"supports" the cards - I guess I never thought of it that way around. Do
the group consider a card working with Linux to be "supported by" or
"supporting" Linux? I usually say the latter but of course as the
drivers are more often written by the community it's probably more
likely the former.

cheers
Ryan
[1] This site shows that the prism v2 card does not say "v2" on the
label but I am sure the box said it v2. Ah well I stand corrected.
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