[SWLUG] WiFi & Linux

[Steve Anderson]

On 18/05/07, Phillip Evans <phillip at paevans.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> I am going wifi in the not too distant future and would appreciate any
> comments on setting this up with Linux. I am currently using Mandriva
> 2007 with no immediate intentions to change.
>
> I have set up several wifi networks for friends using windoze which has
> not been a major problem but how easy is this with Linux ? Do I need to
> use ndiswrapper and how easy (difficult ?) is this to setup & configure
> ? I am intending to use routers and wireless adaptors from either
> Netgear or Belkin and would appreciate any comments on what is the best
> kit to use, any obvious banana skins to avoid etc.

I've set up two wireless networks with Linux boxes, one at work and
one at home. My home setup involved using ndiswrapper with Netgear
drivers for one machine, which worked fine. There was a very good
how-to I followed on the Ubuntu Forums - it involves compiling a
Windows driver into a kernel module which whilst isn't
super-straight-forward easy stuff, isn't rocket science either. The
other machine had a GPL driver (ralink I seem to recall - it's been a
while since I had to think about it).

At work I've got two servers with PCI wifi cards as opposed to USB
dongles. These have a binary firmware blob with GPL wrappers which
works perfectly well. Again, I followed someone else's lead to get
them working; it probably took me an hour to get up and running. These
cards are Linksys WMP54Gs.

I never had complete, outright problems, but it wasn't as
plug-and-play as Windows is. One thing I will say though is get it all
up and running with a normal wired network connection on hand - you
never know when you're going to have to download an extra patch!

Steve

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