# Wireless network card advice needed.

## Kasumi_Ninja

Which is the best networkcard for Gentoo Linux? Is there one available with open sourc drivers Which card can I expect to be working 'out of the box'? Currently I am thinking of   the Asus WL107G PCMCIA Card or the  Asus WL-167G USB Stick. Any advice will be appreciated!

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## Kasumi_Ninja

I did some additional research and found that most Wifi cards need some kind of workaround (e.g. ndiswrapper). I am looking for a card that is natvily supported by Gentoo (e.g. trough kernel or portage drivers). I found it difficult to fin the right card.  Who has such a card or know which one comes close to my prefrences?

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## canabix67

have a look at madwifi...

http://madwifi.org/wiki/Compatibility

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## richard.scott

If you do a product search on google for  for atheros pci you get a whole list of them  :Smile: 

http://www.google.co.uk/products?hl=en&q=atheros%20pci&btnG=Google+Search&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&um=1&sa=N&tab=wf

The Gigabyte GN-WP01GT seems to be your best bet PCI card.

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## Pandor

*srry double post..

>Last edited by Pandor on Fri Apr 20, 2007 1:21 pm; edited 1 time in total

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## Pandor

 *Aniruddha wrote:*   

> I did some additional research and found that most Wifi cards need some kind of workaround (e.g. ndiswrapper). I am looking for a card that is natvily supported by Gentoo (e.g. trough kernel or portage drivers). I found it difficult to fin the right card.  Who has such a card or know which one comes close to my prefrences?

 

Why don't you have a look at the wifi modules in the kernel?

you'll find all kernel (out-of-the-box) supported cards.

i have a intel 2200BG and a unlabeled madwifi card (using madwifi-ng from portage), they both work perfectly fine (with wpa encryption) with no workarounds.

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## richard.scott

I've never really know which cards work "out the box" without any firmware or extra downloads onto the box.

The whole prism54 thing put me off it for a while until I found how easy madwifi was to setup  :Smile: 

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## Kasumi_Ninja

 *Pandor wrote:*   

>  *Aniruddha wrote:*   I did some additional research and found that most Wifi cards need some kind of workaround (e.g. ndiswrapper). I am looking for a card that is natvily supported by Gentoo (e.g. trough kernel or portage drivers). I found it difficult to fin the right card.  Who has such a card or know which one comes close to my prefrences? 
> 
> Why don't you have a look at the wifi modules in the kernel?
> 
> you'll find all kernel (out-of-the-box) supported cards.
> ...

 

Here's the relevant kernel section, I am afraid there isn't much choice:

```
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │

  │ │                                     [*] Wireless LAN drivers (non-hamradio) & Wireless Extensions                                              │ │

  │ │                                     [*]   Wireless Extension API over RtNetlink                                                                │ │

  │ │                                     ---   Obsolete Wireless cards support (pre-802.11)                                                         │ │

  │ │                                     <M>   STRIP (Metricom starmode radio IP)                                                                   │ │

  │ │                                     <M>   Aironet Arlan 655 & IC2200 DS support                                                                │ │

  │ │                                     <M>   AT&T/Lucent old WaveLAN & DEC RoamAbout DS ISA support                                               │ │

  │ │                                     <M>   AT&T/Lucent old WaveLAN Pcmcia wireless support                                                      │ │

  │ │                                     <M>   Xircom Netwave AirSurfer Pcmcia wireless support                                                     │ │

  │ │                                     ---   Wireless 802.11 Frequency Hopping cards support                                                      │ │

  │ │                                     <M>   Aviator/Raytheon 2.4MHz wireless support                                                             │ │

  │ │                                     ---   Wireless 802.11b ISA/PCI cards support                                                               │ │

  │ │                                     <M>   Intel PRO/Wireless 2100 Network Connection                                                           │ │

  │ │                                     [*]     Enable promiscuous mode                                                                            │ │

  │ │                                     [ ]     Enable full debugging output in IPW2100 module.                                                    │ │

  │ │                                     <M>   Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG and 2915ABG Network Connection                                             │ │

  │ │                                     [*]     Enable promiscuous mode                                                                            │ │

  │ │                                     [ ]       Enable radiotap format 802.11 raw packet support                                                 │ │

  │ │                                     [ ]       Enable creation of a RF radiotap promiscuous interface                                           │ │

  │ │                                     [ ]     Enable QoS support                                                                                 │ │

  │ │                                     [ ]     Enable full debugging output in IPW2200 module.                                                    │ │

  │ │                                     <M>   Cisco/Aironet 34X/35X/4500/4800 ISA and PCI cards                                                    │ │

  │ │                                     <M>   Hermes chipset 802.11b support (Orinoco/Prism2/Symbol)                                               │ │

  │ │                                     <M>     Hermes in PLX9052 based PCI adaptor support (Netgear MA301 etc.)                                   │ │

  │ │                                     <M>     Hermes in TMD7160 based PCI adaptor support                                                        │ │

  │ │                                     <M>     Nortel emobility PCI adaptor support                                                               │ │

  │ │                                     <M>     Prism 2.5 PCI 802.11b adaptor support                                                              │ │

  │ │                                     <M>   Atmel at76c50x chipset  802.11b support                                                              │ │

  │ │                                     <M>     Atmel at76c506 PCI cards                                                                           │ │

  │ │                                     ---   Wireless 802.11b Pcmcia/Cardbus cards support                                                        │ │

  │ │                                     <M>   Hermes PCMCIA card support                                                                           │ │

  │ │                                     <M>   Symbol Spectrum24 Trilogy PCMCIA card support                                                        │ │

  │ │                                     <M>   Cisco/Aironet 34X/35X/4500/4800 PCMCIA cards                                                         │ │

  │ │                                     <M>   Atmel at76c502/at76c504 PCMCIA cards                                                                 │ │

  │ │                                     <M>   Planet WL3501 PCMCIA cards                                                                           │ │

  │ │                                     ---   Prism GT/Duette 802.11(a/b/g) PCI/Cardbus support                                                    │ │

  │ │                                     <M>   Intersil Prism GT/Duette/Indigo PCI/Cardbus                                                          │ │

  │ │                                     <M>   USB ZD1201 based Wireless device support                                                             │ │

  │ │                                     <M>   IEEE 802.11 for Host AP (Prism2/2.5/3 and WEP/TKIP/CCMP)                                             │ │

  │ │                                     [*]     Support downloading firmware images with Host AP driver                                            │ │

  │ │                                     [*]       Support for non-volatile firmware download                                                       │ │

  │ │                                     <M>     Host AP driver for Prism2/2.5/3 in PLX9052 PCI adaptors                                            │ │

  │ │                                     <M>     Host AP driver for Prism2.5 PCI adaptors                                                           │ │

  │ │                                     <M>     Host AP driver for Prism2/2.5/3 PC Cards                                               
```

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## Kasumi_Ninja

 *richard.scott wrote:*   

> If you do a product search on google for  for atheros pci you get a whole list of them 
> 
> http://www.google.co.uk/products?hl=en&q=atheros%20pci&btnG=Google+Search&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&um=1&sa=N&tab=wf
> 
> The Gigabyte GN-WP01GT seems to be your best bet PCI card.

 

What's with the atheros? Is that a special chipset known to work under Linux   :Rolling Eyes: .  If I plugin the Gigabyte GN-WP01GT (PMCIA verison) will it work or do I need to undertake additional steps? And if so, which steps are needed?

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## richard.scott

atheros is supported by the madwifi-ng packages   :Very Happy: 

You'll not get a PCMCIA one of those Gigabyte cards, but you'll be better off with one of these:

http://www.google.co.uk/products?q=atheros+pcmcia&btnG=Search+Products&hl=en

I've got a Linksys WPC54G v7 that works fine!

I also have a Linksys WPC54G v5 but that one doesn't have the atheros chipset.

Have a look here for more choice:

http://madwifi.org/wiki/Compatibility

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## Kasumi_Ninja

 *richard.scott wrote:*   

> atheros is supported by the madwifi-ng packages  
> 
> You'll not get a PCMCIA one of those Gigabyte cards, but you'll be better off with one of these:
> 
> http://www.google.co.uk/products?q=atheros+pcmcia&btnG=Search+Products&hl=en
> ...

 

Ah kewl, I slowly begin to understand   :Very Happy: . So madwifi are the drivers for atheros chipsets in the same way nv and nvidia provide drivers for the nvidia chipset. That sounds perfectly fine to me. I wonder though:

-Are all features supported through madwifi (e.g. WEP and WPA)?

-Does the Linksys WPC54GR Wlan+Rangebooster and the Linksys WPC54GS Wlan+Speedboost also work?

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## Computator

 *Aniruddha wrote:*   

> -Are all features supported through madwifi (e.g. WEP and WPA)?

 

WEP and WPA are supported (emerge wpa_supplicant with 'madwifi' USE flag).

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## ripper2256

 *Quote:*   

> Currently I am thinking of the Asus WL107G PCMCIA Card or the Asus WL-167G USB Stick.

 

Forget about the WL-167G Stick. It just works with cvs snapshot drivers...

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## Kasumi_Ninja

 *ripper2256 wrote:*   

>  *Quote:*   Currently I am thinking of the Asus WL107G PCMCIA Card or the Asus WL-167G USB Stick. 
> 
> Forget about the WL-167G Stick. It just works with cvs snapshot drivers...

 

Thanks for the tip   :Wink: .

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## Kasumi_Ninja

Who knows if there is any difference between:   Linksys WPC54G (known to be working with Madwifi) and the WPC54GR/WPC54GS  (R stands probably for Range and S for Speed). To me they almost look the same and therefor think these cards also should work with the madwifi drivers. Unfortunately I can't find any info about these network cards  :Confused: . Who knows if I am correct an that the WPC54GR/WPC54GS card also work in Linux?

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## richard.scott

 *Aniruddha wrote:*   

> Are all features supported through madwifi (e.g. WEP and WPA)?

 

Have you seen the wiki on Wireless Configuration? With the standard gentoo install tools you should be able to do wep encryption (if you still need to) otherwise you'll need to also installwpa_supplicant to get wpa working. 

Your wireless nic has to support the security protocol too. For example, the Gigabyte card I listed before is the only one I can currently find that supports the better WPA2 standard.

 *Aniruddha wrote:*   

> Does the Linksys WPC54GR Wlan+Rangebooster and the Linksys WPC54GS Wlan+Speedboost also work?

 

It all depends on what chipset they run. If you install sys-apps/pciutils you get a command called lspci which will list all your pci devices and should also tell you what chipset its running. Otherwise install sys-apps/lshw which will give you a more detailed hardware listing. Your looking for any mention of Atheros in the output of either   :Wink: 

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## Kasumi_Ninja

 *richard.scott wrote:*   

>  *Aniruddha wrote:*   Does the Linksys WPC54GR Wlan+Rangebooster and the Linksys WPC54GS Wlan+Speedboost also work? It all depends on what chipset they run. If you install sys-apps/pciutils you get a command called lspci which will list all your pci devices and should also tell you what chipset its running. Otherwise install sys-apps/lshw which will give you a more detailed hardware listing. Your looking for any mention of Atheros in the output of either  

 

I am trying to find out before purchasing  :Wink: 

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## richard.scott

 *Aniruddha wrote:*   

> I am trying to find out before purchasing 

 

good luck on that one!   :Shocked: 

A problem I had when I purchased a linksys pcmcia card that didn't work was the the wiki's told me it would i.e. it had the correct model number. But because I had a v5 firmware in my card rather than the newer v7 firmware it had a different chipset! There's no way of knowing without actually plugging it in exactly what it has until you open it up and find out what firmware is on it.

If the Linksys cards are v new models then they should have had the "cisco" influence and be ok. Most recent Linksys kit seems to be linux compatible due to Cisco changing the build specs.

My newer PCMCIA linksys card works fine, so hopefuly yours will too!

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## Kasumi_Ninja

 *richard.scott wrote:*   

>  *Aniruddha wrote:*   I am trying to find out before purchasing  
> 
> good luck on that one!  
> 
> A problem I had when I purchased a linksys pcmcia card that didn't work was the the wiki's told me it would i.e. it had the correct model number. But because I had a v5 firmware in my card rather than the newer v7 firmware it had a different chipset! There's no way of knowing without actually plugging it in exactly what it has until you open it up and find out what firmware is on it.
> ...

 

Thanks for the additional info, I have decided that it is time to take drastic measures   :Smile: . I am sitting here with four cards (Edimax, 2x Linksys and the Sweex). I will test them all for compatibility, Btw the Linksys WPC54GS only works in Windows   :Evil or Very Mad: 

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## Kasumi_Ninja

Ok, major problem. I don't have a pcmcia slot   :Mad: . I do have a ExpressCard slot. Any suggestions for a good wireless usb adaptor/ ExpressCard are certainly welcome!

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## richard.scott

You are able to use windows drivers on Linux via the ndis-wrapper package.

I once had a Belkin USB adapter working v well with that.... oh and also a Netgear WG111 too.

Thinking about it, if you just want basic wireless client support and don't need to setup an access point via hostapd then any card that works with ndis-wrapper should suit you.

Are you using a laptop or a PC, you could always get a PCI->PCMCIA adapter. I have one of thoes working with my Linksys PCMCIA card!

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## Kasumi_Ninja

 *richard.scott wrote:*   

> You are able to use windows drivers on Linux via the ndis-wrapper package.
> 
> I once had a Belkin USB adapter working v well with that.... oh and also a Netgear WG111 too.
> 
> Thinking about it, if you just want basic wireless client support and don't need to setup an access point via hostapd then any card that works with ndis-wrapper should suit you.
> ...

 

I have a build in wifi (Dell 1390/Broadcom 4311) which ought to work with ndiswrapper but it's driving me insane. Therefor I want to avoid ndiswrapper this time. What about the Netgear WG111v2 From my understanding it uses the realtek 8187 driver? Am I dreaming or is the driver for this chipset opensource (http://packages.gentoo.org/search/?sstring=rtl8187). It looks like we have a winner  :Very Happy: .

Who knows how the rtl8187 ebuild works. is it easily to install? Stable?

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## pigeon768

 *Aniruddha wrote:*   

> Who knows how the rtl8187 ebuild works. is it easily to install? Stable?

  The rtl8187 ebuild does not work. Doesn't compile. Nor does the rtl8180 ebuild. Supposedly something in 2.6.19 broke those ebuilds.

I'm having a mother of a time getting mine to work. I have a cheapo atheros card running under madwifi-ng, hopefully I can get the rtl8187 working before 30 days is up and I can return it. (even though it's working great, I don't like how it hangs off the side:cry:)

So far, the only way I've been able to get it to function is with the driver in the mm-sources kernel, but I was getting miserable performance out of it. (won't go faster than 40-50kBps or so) I can't get it running under ndiswrapper for some reason.

I'm not saying you won't have better luck than me, but if I was you, I'd go with an atheros card. They just work.

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## Kasumi_Ninja

 *pigeon768 wrote:*   

>  *Aniruddha wrote:*   Who knows how the rtl8187 ebuild works. is it easily to install? Stable?  The rtl8187 ebuild does not work. Doesn't compile. Nor does the rtl8180 ebuild. Supposedly something in 2.6.19 broke those ebuilds.
> 
> I'm having a mother of a time getting mine to work. I have a cheapo atheros card running under madwifi-ng, hopefully I can get the rtl8187 working before 30 days is up and I can return it. (even though it's working great, I don't like how it hangs off the side:cry:)
> 
> So far, the only way I've been able to get it to function is with the driver in the mm-sources kernel, but I was getting miserable performance out of it. (won't go faster than 40-50kBps or so) I can't get it running under ndiswrapper for some reason.
> ...

 

Oops. I am getting my wifi usb today   :Rolling Eyes: .  The rtl8180 ebuild worked fine for me, but I have a the 2.6.18-r6 kernel (on my desktop) and the  2.6.19 on my laptop. Do you happen to know where I can find an atheros wifi usb stick?

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## richard.scott

A quote from the website:

 *Quote:*   

> At this time MadWifi does not support any USB devices

 

Bugger  :Sad: 

Perhaps your best bet will be to get a ndis-wrapper supported card:

http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/mediawiki/index.php/List

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## Kasumi_Ninja

 *pigeon768 wrote:*   

>  *Aniruddha wrote:*   Who knows how the rtl8187 ebuild works. is it easily to install? Stable?  The rtl8187 ebuild does not work. Doesn't compile. Nor does the rtl8180 ebuild. Supposedly something in 2.6.19 broke those ebuilds.
> 
> I'm having a mother of a time getting mine to work. I have a cheapo atheros card running under madwifi-ng, hopefully I can get the rtl8187 working before 30 days is up and I can return it. (even though it's working great, I don't like how it hangs off the side:cry:)
> 
> So far, the only way I've been able to get it to function is with the driver in the mm-sources kernel, but I was getting miserable performance out of it. (won't go faster than 40-50kBps or so) I can't get it running under ndiswrapper for some reason.
> ...

 

Try  the ebuild from bugzilla (https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=161895), that one compile fine withe the latest kernel. I only have trouble setting my wifi up, maybe you can help? I have made a separate thread here: https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-4024050.html#4024050

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