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If your experience is based on a single card then I think it's a shame you got modded to "+5 informative" when many other people seem to be using it successfully.

Ned.

If your experience is based on a single card then I think it's a shame you got modded to "+5 informative" when many other people seem to be using it successfully.

Ned.

In my experience the HAL blob does not appear to be kernel specific. The module wrapper which interacts directly with the kernel may have version dependencies. Check out the MadWifi HAL FAQ which should answer most of your questions.

There's also madwifi for Atheros chipsets, which includes a couple of Belkin models (though manufacturers switch chipsets all the time, sometimes without even changing model numbers - eg the D-link DWL-650, which may be Prism or TI ATX100 depending on when it was manufactured).

Broadcom is one of the only vendors that doesn't provide a mechanism for native Linux drivers.

Personally, I've never been happy with Broadcom's chips, and even less happy that they refuse to support the Open Source community even with a closed-source or partially closed-source driver. Even Atheros is supporting us with MADWifi and their closed-source HAL... Broadcom could do something similar.

Most of the projects either have support from chip vendors (Intel, Atheros, Agere) or there has been some reverse engineering done (TI).

TI ACX1xx chips: http://acx100.sourceforge.net
Intel Centrino chips: http://ipw2100.sf.net and http://ipw2200.sf.net
Atheros-based chips: http://madwifi.org

I think the wrapper stuff is interesting for the geek factor, but it makes me shudder when people (who don't really know what they are doing) try to use it as an end all be all solution for their wireless needs in Linux, but I'm happy for those who have actually been able to make this solution work for them. ;)

My advice is to shop around very careful, and choose a card that does what you need it to... don't just go with the cheapest thing you can find. A lot of OEM cards have the same chipsets... you can still find some decent stuff for cheap, but it's quite likely you'll run into something that doesn't have good Linux support.

Boot your favorite distro and install the MadWifi drivers. Configure ath0 for DHCP, sit within range of an access point, and you're good to go.

The madwifi drivers work with Atheros chipsets and evidently Atheros themselves contributed a large amount of the code, so it would be in the interest of all Linux users to support them by checking out the MadWifi compatibility listing and purchasing one of the listed cards. You'll be helping the open source community and getting the most out of your wireless card at the same time.

I absolutely concur with this post. I purchased a Linksys WPC55AG and have been extremely pleased with the card using the MadWifi drivers. The only thing I can complain about is the lack of an external antennae port, but there are now Atheros based that have that feature.

The thing most people do not realize is that the real gotcha on the current crop of cards is that the 802.11G functions are achieved in software via a binary firmare. In the US, this is a result of a restriction imposed by the FCC, because without it, people would be able to change the card's operating frequency and bleed over to restricted frequency bands. Hence the reason for the lack of 802.11G cards that have good Linux support.

Atheros is very active in the MadWifi project, and just recently released a new HAL for the project to use, which means even better times for us users.

Don't waste either your time or money on using cards that require NdisWrapper, support companies that actually give a damn about us Linux/*BSD users.

For the love of Dog, don't just go out and buy any old crappy wireless card and hope that linuxant or ndiswrapper will support it. All of these slashbots who recommend this route are just remorseful that they didn't do their research before wasting their money on a monopoly-sustaining wireless card.

The worst part is that ndiswrapper and linuxant usually don't allow full use of the card. Sure, you can probably get some connectivity out of it, but sometimes you can't use 802.11g, put the card into promiscuous mode, or use one of the fancy wifi signal-strength and network information applets in KDE and GNOME.

When people ask me about Linux wireless support, I tell them two things:

1) Skip on down to Staples and pick up a Netgear WG511T. It'll cost $40-$50 depending on where in the nation you buy it and what rebates they have going at the time.

2) Boot your favorite distro and install the MadWifi drivers. Configure ath0 for DHCP, sit within range of an access point, and you're good to go.

The madwifi drivers work with Atheros chipsets and evidently Atheros themselves contributed a large amount of the code, so it would be in the interest of all Linux users to support them by checking out the MadWifi compatibility listing and purchasing one of the listed cards. You'll be helping the open source community and getting the most out of your wireless card at the same time.

For the love of Dog, don't just go out and buy any old crappy wireless card and hope that linuxant or ndiswrapper will support it. All of these slashbots who recommend this route are just remorseful that they didn't do their research before wasting their money on a monopoly-sustaining wireless card.

The worst part is that ndiswrapper and linuxant usually don't allow full use of the card. Sure, you can probably get some connectivity out of it, but sometimes you can't use 802.11g, put the card into promiscuous mode, or use one of the fancy wifi signal-strength and network information applets in KDE and GNOME.

When people ask me about Linux wireless support, I tell them two things:

1) Skip on down to Staples and pick up a Netgear WG511T. It'll cost $40-$50 depending on where in the nation you buy it and what rebates they have going at the time.

2) Boot your favorite distro and install the MadWifi drivers. Configure ath0 for DHCP, sit within range of an access point, and you're good to go.

The madwifi drivers work with Atheros chipsets and evidently Atheros themselves contributed a large amount of the code, so it would be in the interest of all Linux users to support them by checking out the MadWifi compatibility listing and purchasing one of the listed cards. You'll be helping the open source community and getting the most out of your wireless card at the same time.

Or if it's an Atheros chipset check out http://madwifi.org/

The atheros a/b/g chipsets are supported by the madwifi driver, which works pretty well.

Absolutely untrue. Madwifi has support for a ton of b/g chipsets based on Atheros stuff. You can pick up a nice DLink DWL-520 for cheap, and it'll work great. (at least, that's what I think i picked up a few months ago... its something like that, at least).

It is no longer limited to subversion actually - there are already plugins for mercurial, perforce and more (see http://projects.edgewall.com/trac/wiki/VersioningS ystemBackend).

Some other open-source projects that use Trac include adium, catalyst, ruby on rails and madwifi - see http://projects.edgewall.com/trac/wiki/TracUsers for more.

I'm amazed you haven't come across the linux wlan chipset list. Although it hasn't been updated for nearly two years it's about the most exhaustive list of what is in each card that I've seen. If 802.11b is fine then there are still Prism 2.5/3 based cards out there that work very well. I also recently tested a Atheros based PCMCIA card (I'm purposely not naming manufacturers) which also worked well but required a small binary lump.

As mentioned elsewhere, support for wifi isn't spotty - it's support for certain chipsets that is (alas this is also extends to various USB wifi devices too). If you buy (for example) a Broadcom based card I'm afraid you're in for a rough ride because Broadcom don't want to release open source drivers. There's no point getting upset - Broadcom are within their rights to do so and Linux isn't binary only friendly. It's the way things are.

The best advice I can give is get a peek inside the box so you know which chipset you are buying. Manufacturers are lazy and try to avoid changing model numbers significantly even if they swap chipsets because it means all the other materials can stay exactly the same. If you are going on someone else's information be extremly weary of ANY deviation to the model name/number/revison. Things like a +, extra letters or revision increase of any amount can mean chipset changes.

http://madwifi.org/wiki/UserDocs/GettingMadwifi