David McGuffey
2009-Jun-18 14:38 UTC
[CentOS] Which external WiFi device for laptop running CentOS 5.3?
Have decided to give up on the embedded Broadcom 4312 wireless device in my son's Dell laptop. I get WEP open authentication to work, but nothing else. I was about to dump the bcm43xx kernel module and the bcm43xx-microcode5.fw firmware and work with the newer b43 module and associated firmware. However, he claims that at school, he has always had intermittent problems with wireless under Vista and wants an external device (USB or PCMCIA). So...if you had a clean slate, which make & model would you buy for mindlessly easy installation and use under CentOS 5.3? Dave
Mfawa Alfred Onen
2009-Jun-19 09:55 UTC
[CentOS] Which external WiFi device for laptop running CentOS 5.3?
Maybe you can try an intel based USB or PCMCIA card for your son and give it a try. I had my CentOS 5.2 work with an Intel based card which was inbuilt on the Laptop. I believe with the new Kernel in CentOS 5.3 you should have a good chance of getting it to work. On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 3:38 PM, David McGuffey <davidmcguffey at verizon.net>wrote:> Have decided to give up on the embedded Broadcom 4312 wireless device in > my son's Dell laptop. I get WEP open authentication to work, but > nothing else. I was about to dump the bcm43xx kernel module and the > bcm43xx-microcode5.fw firmware and work with the newer b43 module and > associated firmware. However, he claims that at school, he has always > had intermittent problems with wireless under Vista and wants an > external device (USB or PCMCIA). > > So...if you had a clean slate, which make & model would you buy for > mindlessly easy installation and use under CentOS 5.3? > > Dave > > > > _______________________________________________ > CentOS mailing list > CentOS at centos.org > http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos >-------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos/attachments/20090619/38b30d5d/attachment-0001.html>
Robert Moskowitz
2009-Jun-19 12:28 UTC
[CentOS] Which external WiFi device for laptop running CentOS 5.3?
David McGuffey wrote:> Have decided to give up on the embedded Broadcom 4312 wireless device in > my son's Dell laptop. I get WEP open authentication to work, but > nothing else. I was about to dump the bcm43xx kernel module and the > bcm43xx-microcode5.fw firmware and work with the newer b43 module and > associated firmware. However, he claims that at school, he has always > had intermittent problems with wireless under Vista and wants an > external device (USB or PCMCIA). >For USB, you will almost for sure have to use the NDIS wrapper driver. I have not tried it, been shying away from it for at least a year now. I believe it is built into FC11, so will be part of Centos 6 at some date off in the future ;) PCMCIA or miniPCI is more promising. You can use the DKMS driver (?) for say madwifi, and be quite satisfied with the results. You say that the current wifi is 'builtin'. Is that on the board or a miniPCI? If the later, pull it out and put in something supported.> So...if you had a clean slate, which make & model would you buy for > mindlessly easy installation and use under CentOS 5.3? > > Dave > > > > _______________________________________________ > CentOS mailing list > CentOS at centos.org > http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos > >
Robert Heller
2009-Jun-19 13:22 UTC
[CentOS] Which external WiFi device for laptop running CentOS 5.3?
At Thu, 18 Jun 2009 10:38:03 -0400 CentOS mailing list <centos at centos.org> wrote:> > Have decided to give up on the embedded Broadcom 4312 wireless device in > my son's Dell laptop. I get WEP open authentication to work, but > nothing else. I was about to dump the bcm43xx kernel module and the > bcm43xx-microcode5.fw firmware and work with the newer b43 module and > associated firmware. However, he claims that at school, he has always > had intermittent problems with wireless under Vista and wants an > external device (USB or PCMCIA). > > So...if you had a clean slate, which make & model would you buy for > mindlessly easy installation and use under CentOS 5.3?Most of the 'embeded' wireless cards are actually mini-PCI cards. If you could beg/borrow/steal an Intel ipw2100 or ipw2200 mini-PCI card and swap that in you would have a completly painless wifi solution. I don't know of any current model PCMCIA cards that will be as painless. You might find an older Prism-type card on E-Bay -- those cards are pretty close to painless.> > Dave > > > > _______________________________________________ > CentOS mailing list > CentOS at centos.org > http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos > >-- Robert Heller -- 978-544-6933 Deepwoods Software -- Download the Model Railroad System http://www.deepsoft.com/ -- Binaries for Linux and MS-Windows heller at deepsoft.com -- http://www.deepsoft.com/ModelRailroadSystem/
Robert Moskowitz
2009-Jun-19 21:06 UTC
[CentOS] Which external WiFi device for laptop running CentOS5.3?
Julian Thomas wrote:> On Fri, 19 Jun 2009 14:31:33 -0400 fred smith wrote: > >> >>> David McGuffey wrote: >>> >>>> Have decided to give up on the embedded Broadcom 4312 wireless device in >>>> my son's Dell laptop. I get WEP open authentication to work, but >>>> nothing else. I was about to dump the bcm43xx kernel module and the >>>> bcm43xx-microcode5.fw firmware and work with the newer b43 module and >>>> associated firmware. However, he claims that at school, he has always >>>> had intermittent problems with wireless under Vista and wants an >>>> external device (USB or PCMCIA). >>>> > > Why not look at a small access point that plugs into the RJ45 and uses USB for power? DLink DWL-G730AP or > other equivalent.If it really is an AP, it won't do the job, as an AP cannot be a client to another AP. 802.11 DOES have the concept of a wireless backbone, called WDS (wireless distribution system), but it is not yet defined (Work In Progress: 802.11s, I am a contributor to the security features). So each vendor has its own WDS implementation (MIT's OnePC implements part of draft 1 of 802.11s). Of course there are devices out there that are referred to as wireless bridges (Linksys WRT54g is one) that act as a client and bridges an ethernet as a single client to the AP. Note that a wireless bridge is NOT an AP. Of course there are probably devices out there that can be configured either way.... Note, I work on the 802.11 standards and know them well, but I don't know of all the flavors of implementations out in the wild.