# wi-fi and linux

## linxlvr

from what i have been running into about wi-fi and linux, i'm getting the feeling its like trying to get a winmodem running. :-)

Does anyone have anything good to report as far as use of wi-fi (802.11g) and linux?

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## codergeek42

it works perfect on my FC1 box with 128-bit wireless encryption and everything ... though it really isn't playing nicely with Gentoo... (for the sole purpose that there is no iwconfig command at the very beginning of the install from the universal 2004.0 liveCD).

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## linxlvr

ty codergeek.

as i understand you your FC1 box is Fedora Core?

(forgive, i never heard it used that way)

What wi-fi hardware on the PC end of things are you using?

The box im looking at is my moms and she prefers redhat anyways so fedora is fine w/ her.

(she cant even cut and paste, but she can run Linux.. 73 yrs old, shes allright w/ linux, but they say linux isnt ready for the desktop. :-)

i dont care, they never convinced my 6 yr old son running linux was hard either. lol 

sry, jumped on my linux soapbox.  any information is appreciated.

dw

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## benguru

Hi,

It depends on a lot of stuff. First off is your card PCI, USB, or PCMCIA? PCI and PCMCIA are the eaisiest. There are more but I don't really know. It seems pretty random, maybe it depends on your router. For me it has worked, but now it broke, and I can't figure out how to fix it. I think that the simplest way to use Wifi is if the manufactuer offers drivers for linux, something none I have seen have offered.

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## clar77

802.11g, PCI. prism54 driver.  www.prism54.org.

Easy to set-up, works flawlessly under FC1 or Gentoo.

Yeah I used the wired NIC for the install but once I got a 2.6 kernel compiled the wifi was up and running.

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## linxlvr

clar77:  do you know what card you have? I do want a PCI card, but have learned over the years of using linux to always find out before purchasing.

ty

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## clar77

this one:

http://xterasys.com/xn2522g.htm

I got it pretty cheap for www.mrtechus.com, I think.

Just follow the README, and use a 2.6 series kernel. Should work fine. Make sure you get the firmware from the prism54 site as well..

BTW there is an e-build for the driver but I've never tried it.

Chris

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## linxlvr

ty again.

dw

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## echo6

Look at http://ndiswrapper.sf.net and http://www.linuxant.com look at the supported hardware links,  it'll give you an idea of the wireless hardware you might want to avoid.   Both use driverwrappers to use Windows drivers as the hardware manufacturers show no interest in supporting Linux.   The second url is closed source and you have to pay a small fee for it.

Unfortunately my Lifebook notebook comes with a Broadcom BCM94306 54g wireless hardware,  and I purchased the linuxant driverwrapper before ndiswrapper became available.   It works but it is not the ideal solution  :Sad: 

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## k2laz

I am using a Toshiba Sat A25, its a out of mainstream laptop that I got from COSTCO, and that I would recommend.  The only caveat is that the screen resolution is on 1024x768 but other than that it works great: 3.06Ghz P4, 512 MB of memory, 80GB of hard disk and has the Atheros wifi builtin, besides a Realtek twisted pair connection.

I have the Atheros working with the madwifi-driver on the 2.6.3 kernel.  :Very Happy: 

However, my problem is configuring it in properly.  I added net.ath0 into the rc list using a new profile 'mobile' and specified the prefs dhcp for it in conf.d/net and that works if run by hand (yes I did boot with softprofile=mobile) and it comes up fine.  However I am not able to have it do it hands-free.  I would read the docs (if I knew what and where they are), anybody know?  Also the configuration I still need to had do it with iwconfig, I tried saving the info into KDE's wireless configuration however it will gladly accept the info and even do it for me if I hit apply however it seems to have a memory problem if I leave the panel and return.   :Crying or Very sad: 

I am doing something wrong in that department or have I hit the development wall (ie. NYI)?  If so what workarounds (ie scripts to run at boot) that will config it correctly, those 128-bit encryption keys are a bitch to remember!   :Wink: 

Thanks everyone,

--laz

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## Eagle_

I had added all the models for WiFi, but i dont have net.ath0.

How do you add net.ath0 to the rc list?

Eagle

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## UberLord

 *Eagle_ wrote:*   

> I had added all the models for WiFi, but i dont have net.ath0.
> 
> How do you add net.ath0 to the rc list?

 

```
ln -sf /etc/init.d/net.eth0 /etc/init.d/net.ath0

rc-update add net.ath0 default
```

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## Petyr

Actually I had pretty good luck getting my Netgear card up and running.

It's a WG511 card, so I'm using the Prism drivers. I do not have WEP enabled (basically because I feel it's useless so I'm looking into a simple VPN solution instead) so I'm not testing that aspect out. Good thing is at this point all I have to do is literally plug in the card to the laptop and about 5 seconds later I've got an IP and can browse the net  :Very Happy: 

Problem is getting there, I remember it being a bit of a pain to get it completely working and there are a few things the I configured myself (like telling net.eth1 that it needs the firewall started...)

The down side is this, even over something as simple as FTP from my local computer to my laptop, I can only get about 2MB/sec outta the card even though it's a G card. This is partially due to the laptop, but on a wired connection I can get up to about 3.5 sustained with bursts of 7 MB/sec. Hopefully some new firmwares will come out that fix the performance issues but *shrug* who knows when that will happen.

Regards,

Petyr Rahl

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## UberLord

 *Petyr wrote:*   

> The down side is this, even over something as simple as FTP from my local computer to my laptop, I can only get about 2MB/sec outta the card even though it's a G card. This is partially due to the laptop, but on a wired connection I can get up to about 3.5 sustained with bursts of 7 MB/sec. Hopefully some new firmwares will come out that fix the performance issues but *shrug* who knows when that will happen.
> 
> 

 

54mbs (wireless) is half of 100mbs (wired)

2mb/sec compared to 3.5mb/sec is gotta when you compare wireless to wired.

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## Petyr

Uhmm yes I know. However over my wired connection I'm getting 56% of the actial wirespeed when it bursts. This is probably due to a number of factors but at the very least I can burst to that. With my wireless I can't burst higher than 41% of the theoretical limit. In this case I can at least elminiate interference as a factor (laptop 3 ft away from AP).

What I pointing out here is that the firmware for the card isn't perfect by any means. The same probably goes for the AP but at least those firmwares are easier to get. If you don't believe me feel free to go and read some of the forums on the prism54 site. They openly admit that the firmware needs some work to really get the full speed out of it.

I'm not bitching about that speed, don't get me wrong. As long as my wireless card can easily outpace my cable modem I'm happy for the most part. On the otherhand I use my desktop to download much anime, so I like to have more speed to be able to transfer stuff to my laptop (over sftp) as fast as possible.

Petyr rahl

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