# What WLAN 54MBit PCMCIA is compatible with Gentoo?

## onkelfusspilz

Hi,

I think about a WLAN - PCMCIA - card for my laptop, but my bargainer said, that there is no 54MBit card supported by linux, is this the truth?

He also said, that the range of the 54MBit WLAN is much less that the 11 MBit ones. If so, what are experiences about that? Does it work through 3 inner walls (8m distance)?

What do you approve?

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## Rodent

WLAN - PCMICIA card? I think you mean 802.11a/b/g, well with that assumption here goes my answer.

I don't know about support for in linux for the faster cards (54mbits), but I can say that it depends mostly on the manufactor.  I do know that the 802.11b card inbedded in my laptop has always just seemed to work.

But I can tell you about range expections.  With 802.11a, which is incompitablity with 802.11b/g (WiFi), you work on 5.4ghz this will go alot further but will be stopped by lots of objects in the way (think am radio with out the bouncing).

With 802.11b/g you get a 2.4ghz signal which will go a shorter distance but go though walls and the elk better.  The b (11mbs) is the most popular and widely used although g (54mbs) which is backward compatible with b is becoming popular quickly. 

 As for range you will see large differencences in ablity from different base stations the factors involved are placement (in a basement closet is alot worse then on the roof), output db (power), and attena.  

But to just answer half you question, yes 11 goes furter in solid enviroments (2mbs goes even further). but you will have no problem with just 8m and 3 walls, on my 802.11b netowork I get 10m with 2 inner walls a brick one at a soild 11mbs.  

Thinking of it like sound waves is a good way to understand it a little better, in those "ghetto blaster cars" you hear the bass even when you are inside your home but when they open there door allowing the high pitch sounds out you hear them "more" futher away than the bass (in line of sight of course).  Thihs correlates to the Wireless standards and there range and speed because it corresponds fairly closely with the sounds we hear.  

Also if you have any cordless phones around the house play with them both the 900hz and 2.4ghz will give you an idea of what to expect from the wireless standards.

If you do go g btw remember to update your firm ware since most compaines released the product berfor the final statandard was offical.

I give my recommendation to a 802.11b/g PC card as 'a' has always just been a pain in the butt and isn't that popluar.

Bottom line as I see it if you need 54mbs of bandwith you probally should get a wired line for the security and for the reliablity. But 11mbs if more than enough to play games and to surf then net, espillicial since most broadband connections are onlly 1.5mbs.

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## bcore

I bought a linksys WET54g ethernet to wireless bridge.. Works like a charm through my existing ethernet nic, so there's no setup at all... I'd totally reccommend that.

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## onkelfusspilz

Hi,

@Rodent: Thank you very much! I did not know, that there are different standards before.

What I want from the 54MBit solution is streaming video (http://www.videolan.org/), so i can watch TV in my sleeping room, and I don't think 11 MBit's are enough for that. The second thing is just surfing the net. But it don't seem to be that easy.

But a 802.11b/g seems ok for me, because my distance is less than 10m. And if the line is getting slow, ok I have to change the room for tv  :Wink: 

I'll continue looking for a 802.11b/g PCMCIA card supported by gentoo.

@bcore: Yes, this is exactly what I'm planning to do! I'll connect a bridge to my local ethernet. But on the other side there must be a PCMCIA - Card in my laptop, and there is a driver-problem.

Do you have a laptop connecting to the WET54g? Works good?

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## Sas

i got a dlink dwl-g650 (revision 2b / prism gt chipset) working, but it was very hard and the driver (madwifi) is not very stable at all (but i am lucky to be able to use it because it doesnt support ad-hoc mode and i had to play around with the source to enable that^^) :[

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## onkelfusspilz

Hi Sas,

I've heard bad things about the DLINK cards, especially about the signal quality, but what do you think about it?

What does "not very stable at all" mean? Does it cut off your connections?

What about range and speed?

I'm sorry, but what does ad-hoc mode mean?

Thank you

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## bcore

No, the WET54g is what I use as the access point. You use it instead of installing a wireless card directly into the pc. Instead, you just run a very short thernet cable from your PC's ethernet slot into the bridge, and it connects with the wireless router in the next room, getting my room pc onto my apartment's wlan..

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## onkelfusspilz

Hi bcore,

I'm sorry I misunderstood you. But I think your solution is not perfect for my laptop, because I don't want to carry a special adapter with me.

Thank you anyways

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## bcore

Ah, that's true, it wouldn't be ideal for a laptop at all... I would like to put 54g into my laptop as well, so I'll be interested in any success stories there..

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## sa

Whatever you do don't by 802.11g card with a broadcom chipset it wont work with linux.

Here i'm using the d-link g650 rev a1 with linux, its working nicely http://ruslug.rutgers.edu/~mcgrof/802.11g/

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## smiler.se

The Netgear WG511 works like a charm with the drivers posted at the link above. There is also work beeing done on getting it into the mainline kernel (Im coding the pcmica-stuff, for 2.4 now, will port to 2.6 later) but the pcmcia-cs version on that site works very well. You _can_ even get it running under 2.6 with a few modifications but more on that in the ruslug forum  :Smile: 

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## emilh

Hey!

Will this card work? http://www.3com.com/prod/se_SE_EMEA/detail.jsp?tab=prodspec&sku=3CRWE154G72

Couldn't find anything on google. :(

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## pilla

I am also searching for a PCMCIA Wireless 802.11.g; 

Seems like Linksys WPC54G is not supported, for the posts I've read by googling it (see product here). I've sent an email to their Support Dept asking if it would work in Linux, but had no response until now.

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## lemming

And if you decide to go with a Orinico Gold, make sure you get the Classic Gold.  The newer one is not supported.

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## pilla

Another good place to take a look before buying.

http://tuxmobil.org/pcmcia_linux.html

BTW, I had confirmation by Linksys that their WPC54G is not supported in Linux.

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## Orion1313

Well that pretty much sux.  Why would they be so cruel to deny us the ablility to use their products on a much broader and better platform than Win-Blows...

Open-Source is now becomming a threat?  You will be assimilated!!!

If anyone finds out when the LinkSys WPC54G is going to be supported, please email me!!  For now I'll hang on to mine.  Works in my Win-Blows notebook.

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