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Wireless LANs and Linux
Patrick Mullen writes "Wireless LAN products are hitting everywhere these days. I've just an overview of these technologies, the products out there, and how they look on Linux." I'm a huge fan of the wireless stuff (we've been doing wireless lans for years now... if only we had wireless electricity ;) And check out
Absolute Value Software: Mark's working on a simple router/gateway (that runs Linux) and looks extremely promising.
802.11, with the boost of Apple's AirPort, has started really taking off (pun intended). USENIX conferences have had Wavelan or Aironet (now Cisco) gear available for a couple years now, and it's wildly popular; now, Aerzone (which used to be Laptop Lane) has partnered with Delta, and they are starting to offer 802.11 service in airports (the ones with airplanes, not the plastic flying saucers). I think American has a deal with another company, but I can't remember the name of that one.
The nice thing, of course, is that since it's wireless, you don't necessarily need to be in the lounge to get a signal; so next time you're in the vicinity of a Crown Room or Admiral's Club, see if you have any signal.
For that matter, just see if you see any wireless LANs around home! When we set ours up, it turned out that a couple companies across the street showed up in the choice of networks pop-up menu....
The 2.4ghz band is available in most countries around the world. Two exception, until recently, were France and Japan, but both have agreed to clear the band (I think it was the military in France that was on it).
One of the things that is a real stumbling block is that many of the drivers don't work properly or at all on an SMP machine. If you are like me and have a dual CPU box, wireless networking is very problematical. Another thing to watch out for is that while the Lucent drivers work fine in PCMIA mode, they fail if you try to use a Lucent card in the PCI slot adapter they sell.
Note also that once you modify it, it's not a Part-15 device any longer and you should have a license.
That's odd: according to the Lucent site (and my Lucent reps) there's no regulation of these antennas. I ran a couple of directional (Yagi) antennas for a 802.11b p2p link test and I asked about FCC requirements.
Hell, they even list the 24 dBi Parabolic Grid as available for 'FCC and unregulated countries only', which leads me to assume they're FCC-legal..
(check out their product site.. Very cool..)
Your Working Boy,
There is a Linux distribution called FlyingLinux.NET used at the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden that is claimed to be the first linux distribution oriented to mobility services. I used it last spring on HP OmniBooks with Lucent WaveLAN cards.
Think about it. Batteries still have to be connected to the device they are powering via wires. A battery is simply a portable power source. Just like a generator or a solar cell, it still has to be connected to the device being powered via wires.
Tesla was cool.
I am also making it availible on my network for the more mobile users - who typically want to be running about having meetings while still connected.
now, if my portable's screen wasn't hooped...
generally, it seems great, just a shame that there seem to be so few snmp products kicking about under linux... (if you know some good ones, pls let me know!)
I am now waiting to get my hands onto an ipac handheld - and have gnu/icq all over the offic
Sure, it looks like an iMac turd, but it's a slick little device that not only provides wireless bridging to the wired network, but also automatically does network address translation for the wireless devices. It will even offer DHCP / NAT for the wired machines, and manage your dialup for you (it has an integrated 56k modem).
So, on DSL/Cable setups that share a single IP, it frees up whatver machine was forced to do IPmasq. And over a shared dialup, you no longer have to have anybody running diald.
It only costs $300, which isn't that much more than what you'd pay for a small home router anyway, and of course it also gives you wireless access (compatible with 802.11b products). I get excellent reception throughout my entire 3-story house, including the basement.
Best of all, you don't have to have a Mac (or Windows) to use it... there's a java-based configurator.
Certainly, I ran it that way for most of last year.
But, frankly, using a Linux box as the gateway system for these things is more difficult to administer and not much cheaper (if at all) than using dedicated hardware. When a wireless bridge and NAT router (such as the Lucent Orinoco RG-1000 or the Apple Airport hub) costs under $300 they're a great deal.
My wireless system, which started out using WLAN on a Linux system that was also doing IP masquerading for my cable modem, eventually migrated to the Orinoco AccessPoint II for range and ease-of-administration improvements. (I also retired the box for IP masquerading when hardware NAT boxes dropped well under $200; now it's just a server.)
Let me tell you, wireless rocks for basic net usage. Performance, while well below 100baseT, is more than good enough for two laptops running simultaneous full-bandwidth RealVideo feeds. For home use it's hard to complain about that.
My company rolled it out to all laptop users last year, too, so I've seen how it scales -- and the answer is "pretty darn well." Bulk downloads are fairly slow, but day-to-day use is indistinguishable from the wired connection.
Wireless will change your usage pattern.
jim frost
jim frost
jimf@frostbytes.com
Ya know, lately I have been having these feelings of uncertainty about the potential health effects of the radiation our bodies are forced to absorb every day. Back in the 1920's-1930's Television was a dream and radio was, what, 10-100W transmitters? Not much ambient radiation. Flash to now. We have local TV, radio transmitters, cell phones, bluetooth, wireless LANs, Microwave transmitters, and satellite. Not to mention CRT screens, television screens, CB radios.... You get the idea. How is all this affecting us? Are the cancer rates any higher? I know teenagers appear dumber, but that's just observation. Are we going to be forced, some day in the future, to set up RF free zones for sensitive people?
Dirty Pirate Hooker
I'm not clinko.
Oh wait.
I think the most recent stuff I have seen on this has been using microwaves to transmit waves that are converted to electricity.
Wow! Smart thinking. To post something to make it seem as though you, clinko, have no knowledge of any previous posts in this thread by you, clinko.
--------------------------------------------
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%46%55%43%4B !
There are released, supported Wavelan now ORiNOCO card does have drivers for Linux.
I quote from the Lucent produce listing:
"The ORiNOCO PC card is compatible with Windows® 95/98/2000/CE/NT (NDIS Miniport driver), Apple® Mac OS 7.5.2 and higher, Novell Client 3.x & 4.x, and Linux (kernel versions 2.0.x to 2.2.x) for Intel processors."
Seems quite a bit broader than this article's "Windows 95/98/NT/2000"...
CMU's had a wireless network in every building on campus since this summer, and most buildings last year. As a proud user of this wireless system (and Linux) it's great! I can IRC and read /. from class, from the park, and even from the bus stop. We use the Lucent WaveLAN Silver cards, and I had no problem at all setting it up under Linux. And Linux can even restart the network card after I suspend (something the Windows partition can't do)
I am running three Lucent WaveLANs in my house, and they do run under Linux, and at 11mbits too. Indeed, they are supported `out of the box' in Redhat 7.0, though you need to get their wireless tools package to configure them.
I was thinking about something the other day, it might interest all of you -- make fake wireless nets using the Cybiko.
For a bit of explaination, here goes -- the Cybiko is a small 'toy' directed at teenagers -- it has all the usual PDA features, but the most interesting is that it posesses short-rage wireless capabilities.
It has an SDK, so I had the idea of making an app and some drivers so that you could connet the Cybiko to your serial port and communicate with other people with the same Cybiko setup. THe speed are limited to about 200kb/sec (IIRC) but they're cheap at 129 USD per unit, and multipule units could communicate with each other.
Hilary Rosen's speech was about her love of money and her desire to roll around naked in a pile of money.
My Dell Inspiron 3800 runs close to 4 hours on a charge and that's with the drive running a fair bit.
You have to keep in mind that the more nodes you add in a wireless LAN (or any other shared medium LAN), the more contention you get. For doing a cluster, the practical limit would likely be in the neighborhood of 10 machines... Depending of course on what you mean by "cluster".
As for a cable/dsl router system, you should check out karlbridge software ( http://www.karlbridge.com/ ). Their software is what is running under the hood of most of the "Access Point" class machines out there.
The Apple Airport Basestation, which retails for
about US$300 or so, contains a Lucent WaveLan IEEE silver card (64bit encryption), an ethernet port, and a 56K modem. I have one that I have upgraded to the Lucent WaveLan IEEE gold card (128bit encryption) and it works wonderfully. I had to use some karlbridge windows-based config software to configure it, but it works!
Beware of one flaw in the Lucent cards if you choose to try to build your own bridge with it. The Lucent cards will *not* send packets with a different MAC address than their own. Hence, bridging does not work with Lucent cards. In order to get bridging to work with a Lucent card, specialized firmware (which is not freely available) has to be downloaded into the card before it is put into bridging mode.
Here's a link to the Java Airport Configurator for fully configuring and controlling an apple airport from any OS.
Just a few corrections on your post.
;-)>
802.11 specifies three PHY layers: Direct Sequence (DSSS), Frequency Hopping (FHSS), and Infrared (IR). DSSS and FHSS both run at 1Mbps and 2Mbps (depending on signal strength.) I believe that IR also runs at 2Mbps, but I've never actually seen one.
802.11a is what you call 802.nextgen. It uses an orthogonal frequency domain multiplexing (OFDM) to deliver from 6Mbps to 54Mbps in the 5.0GHz N-UNII frequencies.
802.11b is High Rate DSSS physical layer (HR/DSSS). It is an extension to DSSS which adds 5.5Mbps and 11Mbps data rates.
There is no such thing as "802.11b - 11Mb Frequency Hopping". Only DSSS has been extended to 11Mbps.
Source: IEEE 802.11 Handbook: A Designer's Companion By Bob O'Hara and Al Petrick.
Maybe I'm just outdated but I thought CDMA was Sprints baby TDMA is what most other normal companies are using in the US and GSM is what is used in the overseas markets.
wireless tech is cool but for now i think that it's just to slow... hopefully soon... :-)
Curt Rebelein, Junior
"Anything worth doing is worth doing to excess"
Could the towers in to the magnetosphere that you referred to be combined into the tether described in the "Space Elevator" concepts? At the least, the tether cable would help provide power for the elevator car as it travels. Also, a previous story mentioned a satellite that used the energy in the magnetosphere to provide propulsion, perhaps the inverse could be applied with the "Space Elevator"....
Averye0
--o You're just jealous cause the voices talk to me and not to you! o--
IPv6, wherefore art thou? My watch needs an IP!
I believe in self-flagellation. In fact, everybody should have a flagellum.
With the 4 monitors and 15 open cases in my room I doubt that my testicles would be happy w/ more radiation from em fields :) Has anyone had a patent for lead underwear yet?
I've been trying to setup at home with a wireless environment and I've managed to get the Linux side of things working but the damn residential gateway from Lucent won't talk to MediaOne via DHCP. Anyone got any ideas? I've searched in all the usual places (Deja etc) but to no avail. Thanks, Sean
A couple sci-fi books I've read have supposed the existence of microwave power transmission (Borders of Infinity by Lois McMaster Bujold, and A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge). Are there any projects seriously pursuing this?
http://www.netcraft.com/whats/?host=www.cybiko.com
says
"www.cybiko.com is running Microsoft-IIS/5.0 on Windows 2000"
So I would doubt that vi was used to create the site.
Also there are a lot of inconsistencies. I read this and tryed to figure what they mean by it.
"We have hit 220 000 000+ Impressions in 200 of the World's Best Publications!"
My thinking is they have hit 220,000,000 eyes with their blurbs in publications. If this were a possible investment I not know what to do. They have a decent product that could be the next pokemon. But they do not deliver a consistent message with their website most all of the marketing I have seen out of this company leads me to believe they lack leadership and dirrection.
So while I wouldn't concure with you in your statement of them being phonies. I would agree that they are somewhat misguided in their persuits.
What's so special about Wireless LAN's as opposed to normal (Wirefull?) LAN's?
Seen from the computer's side, it's just a network card, isn't it?
I help set up a friends wireless LAN in his house and it was awesome. I was truly expecting wireless to be buggy and slow but I was blown away by the speed and the efficiency. We walked all through his house(which was quite big) and didn't notice any loss in performance. Once I get some money I plan to set one up myself.
"Can't sleep. Clowns will eat me"
CDMA was actually invented by Qualcomm. It is used in the US by Sprint PCS (among others). GSM actually uses TDMA as it's air interface, but has different protocols than the other (I forget the standards number) type of TDMA used in the US by AT&T Wireless (among others).
Wireless Electricity has been around, in theory, or a while.
Of course, Nikola Tesla was way before his time.
Gosh, for a savings of a few dollars, I can have 1/10th the speed, *AND* it only works on Windows and Mac?
Sign me up!!!
-
When they need a larger connection--computer in the next room, printer down the hall, baby monitor--you move up to a LAN. The LAN can be wireless using 802.11.
When the LAN needs a wider connection--email, web, games, new pr0n scripts for the FUFME--you move out a WAN which is usually the Internet at large. The WAN could be wireless through fixed wireless (RF), satellite, optics, etc.
Hey you need wireless electricity to run a LAN ?
m plamps-00.txt
Then you need "Electricity over IP":
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-bala-
so long
Peter
i don't think you get it.. the topic is wireless.. the point of wireless networks has really not much to do at all with a ethernet card in the back of your computer connect to the network by a cat5 cable it has to do with having a wireless pcmcia card in your laptop and having a WIRELESS connection to your network or the internet. comparing the prices between buying a cheap 10mb ethernet card for your desktop and buying a wireless pcmcia card for your laptop is worthless bantha fodder...
Good for you. I'm sure no one who reads here has ever even heard of the linksys product... Who are you kidding - ipmasquarding all the way.
As wireless networking has come into it's own in the last year or two, a small number of pioneering ISP's have begun offering wireless access for home and corporate users. Perhaps I can score a shameless plug for a friend of mine, and give those of you experimenting with wirless a valuable resource to exchange information.
My friend Jack Brewer, owner of MicroVillage Internet in South Bend, IN created their SkyBurst wireless access service a little over a year ago. The service offers internet access to both residential and commercial customers. The technology presently allows throughput from 11-22mbit over a cellular style of overlapping coverage areas via (presently) 19 radio towers covering the Michiana area. At the heart of the operation exists a large number of linux routers.
Presumably, this Slashdot article was dealing with the more pedestrian 2.4 GHz consumer wireless technology for small home LAN's; However many of the wireless adapater manufacturers at the client end offer hardware that overlaps both applications.
If you are an ISP operator or network administrator interested in wireless WAN technology, or are already in the field and want to brainshare, you may wish to visit http://www.skyburst.net for more information.
Cheers,
Scot
THIS SPACE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK.
Cisco's Aironet wireless products, (they bought aironet recently), are pretty bad-ass. Suckers seem to work REAL well, and they support 11Mbps wireless LAN rates. BreezeCOM and Lucent make pretty good wireless gear as well.
I've been called a "Fucking Dick" by better people than you.
Note that the 14 dB antenna isn't an omni. You don't get 14 dB from an onmi. Gain is at the expense of concentrating the energy in one direction or at least one plane.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
$800-1000? Even assuming that HomeRF equipment is free, you'd need a pretty big network to have that much of a price difference considering that 802.11 base stations are only $300 and cards are only $100.
cya
Ethelred
Everyone wants to be Ethelred. Even I want to be Ethelred.
It's called a 'battery.' Apparently they've been around for quite a while now.
> The problem was, Westinghouse dropped his
> support of it because it became difficult to
> charge people for it.
I supose we should be glad though. Between the health risks of that much electromagnetic radiation, and the fact that tesla coils have the annoying habbit of proving that ground isn't an infinite energy sink (even back then one end of the AC generator was grounded - Tesla sent so much energy into ground once that it burnt out and the generators at the power plant and set them on fire)
I do have to wonder how modern electronics would have evolved in such a world though. Circuits would be way different - they would have to be to survive.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
1. Extreme expense (hey most people even if they are made out of money find it at least slightly disquiting to see triple digit cell phone bills every month).
2. No pressing need for wireless devices (why do you think they are trying to persuade people that a stupid little dumbed down presentation of a homepage (it makes lynx look extremely complex) is the real thing? they are getting desperate). I can do everything with patience and a regular line.
3. wireless internet access is extremely expensive even more than phone access and wireless broadband is like giving away your first born or one of your limbs.
4. Lack of infrastructure. I still cannot use my connectivity anywhere in the world at all. With regular telephone networks at least I have the (costly) option to say dial into my ISP from Mongolia and surf the web.
Respond to s
cya
Ethelred
Everyone wants to be Ethelred. Even I want to be Ethelred.
Since beginning my postings on Slashdot I have become increasingly alarmed at the number of idiotic morons that say the most alarming, or the most uninformed things. Case in point, the above first post.
First posting is a priviledge lad. You should not go out of your way to get the first post and then waste it on something as stupid as 'boom'. You should in fact use the great opportunity to have your views known. Dare I say, even about the topic at hand? Yes, it is possible to have a first post that contains a little bit of meaning. I would even prefer a Penis Bird Guy post to this idiotic AC's retarded attempt to get attention.
Now, why does this bother me? On its own it probably wouldn't. But combine this with the fact that in every article the stupidity of the posters is only overshadowed by the obvious stupidity of the moderators and you start to understand why I am quickly losing faith in humanity. I realize that the audience (and hence the moderators) here is made up of mostly young adults and teenagers. However, if this is the youth of America in action, I can only doubt our survival in the future. Such blatant stupidity and obvious power tripping arrogance should not be tolerated or fostered. But here, not only is it tolerated, it is encouraged. Moderators are told to abuse by the 'majority rules' crowd. Don't let an opinion you disagree with get moderated up. No matter how eloquently written that opinion is. No matter how many facts the poster used to back his position. No matter how right he/she is or could be, don't let that opposing view be heard! It is strange to me that a forum based on freedom is in actuality just a place to reinforce the stupidity that has been bred into this generation. If the youth of America is represented here on Slashdot, then I don't just weep for the future, I bleed my wrists in pain and indignation at the prospects that lie ahead for us.
As Slashdot continues to attempt to drain out your indignation, please do not be afraid of having your own opinion. As Slashdot goes out of its way to indoctrinate our youth into the 'majority' mindset, as slashdot attempts in every way to completely obliterate our ability to think for ourselves, stand up for your rights. Do not be afraid to continue expressing your opinions. No matter how unpopular those opinions are, you are our hope for the future. Please remember that.
I realize this will get moderated down into oblivion quicker than any other post on the forum, but please, if you read it, remember it. Do not be afraid of your thoughts. Do not let the slashdot hordes convince you that you must wipe your mind clean of 'unpure' thoughts. Remember your mind. Remember your youth. Remember your own thoughts. And most importantly, remember to be different.
Do not be afraid of your differences with others. Embrace them! Hold onto those differences as if your life depended on it. It may be rough trying to ride through your youth this way (and I know, because I did just that), but it is worth it. As I quickly approach thirty years of age (27 and counting) I realize that I was never afraid of all the bible thumping morons that were always so 'concerned' about my differences. In fact, I usually just laughed it off when it didn't piss me off. And now, I still play that evil, 'satanic' heavy metal music. I still enjoy a good 'evil and satanic' Dungeons and Dragons game. I still enjoy a good horror story or movie. And I still play those damnable, corrupting violent video games. I still wear black tee-shirts (the ones that got me called a satanist on a daily basis by my 'peers' as a youth). And nobody is ever gonna pry that guitar out of my hands (not even my wife, but she wouldn't try).
You can do it. You can make it through your youth without becoming the zombie that the 'popular' crowd wants you to be. You don't have to be popular. You just need to be 'YOU'. And believe it or not, Slashdot is totally against the entire concept of being YOU. Slashdot is all about being a part of the 'in' crowd. Slashdot is all about being 'hip', or 'kewl' or '3l33t'. Please, even if you are naturally 3l33t (and some are), do not succumb to the urge that Slashdot places in front of you. Do not give up your differences. Allow yourself free thought. Allow yourself to voice your opinion. Allow yourself to live, as you and you alone.
Slashdot will not succeed in destroying the free-thinking minds of the individuals that make up the youth of America. Don't let it succeed. As it appears more and more to just be a 'anti-corporate' corporation in and of itself, go against the grain. Do not be afraid. The future is yours, but only if you are willing to remain you.
Yes I'm feeling philosophical today. Is that a reason to mod me down? Probably. After all, I dare to accuse Slashdot of something that isn't cool. How unpopular of me! Fuck popularity. I'd rather be able to look myself in the mirror than be a druken, drugged-up, ass-kissing, 'thank you sir may I have another' moron like the great Slashdot 'community'.
Be different. Be yourself. Don't be, 'one of them'.
Bite my yammer.
Is this going to be like the "paperless workplace" they promised us? Will we just get more wires (in form of hubs, wiring our houses so devices work all over, ect) as wireless becomes more prevolent?
hmmm.....
--
Cognosco: (Latin) To examine, enquire, learn
Cognosco: To examine, enquire, learn
http://cognosco©datablocks©net
Serendipity. This discussion appeared on Slashdot just hours after I'd finished writing this document, which describes how you can use a Unix (including Linux) computer as a 802.11 wireless base station.
Is that what makes the sky look purple sometimes?
--
Okay, I got Linux installed. So where's the free beer everyone keeps talking about??
My Apple AirPort base station won't do more than 40-bit crypto, but works nicely with my (old enough to still say) Lucent card in my work NT laptop. And it was only $299. Airport cards for the two Macs were $99 each. Nice.
Linux works just fine with the Orinoco WaveLAN cards also...
The article doesn't cover crypto, Apple, or have correct information about Orinoco/Lucent equipment. If you were looking for an accurate way to compare and contrast wireless products, look elsewhere -- at least until the site is updated.
+++OK ATH
i used to think like you but you're eventually going to reach the conclusion that being different isn't all that important and is a somewhat ambiguous goal.
you have to accept that by telling people they should be different, you are in fact pushing your own belief onto them. maybe they don't want to be different. can't they choose to be the same?
if you disagree with someone then by all means make your point but agreeing with someone or even with a whole group is not necessarily a bad thing.
in fact i'll go so far as to say that being different is WAY over emphasized in american culture. i see a kid with 5 piercings in his face and i think #1 that looks horrible and #2 why does this kid have to go to this extreme just to prove that he's unique or different? the most interesting thing about any person is not how they look but how they think. if someone wants to vote for Bush, i'll tell them why i think they shouldn't but i'm certainly not going to condemn them for their reasoning even if i find it to be faulty. its their choice.
I've been looking quite a bit at the linux-wlan code which you can get from the Absolute Value systems page. Frankly, it's bloated beyond belief and in some places just plain broken (e.g. a jiffies based timeout with interrupts disabled). It has very much the look of code produced by someone being paid by the line. I'd rate its chances of getting into the standard kernel in anything like its present form as virtually nil.
I'm using it right now... Breezenet to be exact. Hits around 1.1 mbps late at night... My ISP is actually InternetCDS. The technology isn't new... people are just startin to use it because cable companies and telephone companies are both way too slow to roll out their services to us people that DON'T live in urban areas.
My roomate and I are useing WaveLan Silver cards at home. We're using them to share a cable modem connection. He switches one card between his his Linux laptop and windows game box no problem, and I can use mine whether in windows or linux as the server/router. We'd like to get another card an set a dedicated server up - but can't affor it at the moment. My older brother really liked our setup and has since gotten Wavelan for his home also. He's connecting a Linux server with an iMac and having no problems. He also has a Win2K box using wireless. All of the needed software came with the WaveLan cards (The Mac one is an airport card - but based on the WaveLan architecture.) Both my brothers and my home networks run at 11Mbs, not 2 as the article claims. This isn't that new either - so the article would have to be very old to have been written with (then) current info and just be outdated. As far as the advantage of wireless, using my roomates laptop we can surf the web from the park across the street. My older brother lives only 10 blocks away, so we have talked about putting some booster antennas on our roofs and seeing if we can get our wireless networks to talk to each other. With a booster we could also use the laptop from the retail area across the highway from our place to surf the net. Imagine doing real-time price comparison, or surfing the web while eating at a restaurant - all through your home network and cable modem. Not only that, but since both mour place and my brothers were already built, the routing of wires would've been a pain.
You may know it as Thunder.
Thanks for inflating your karma a little closer to your ego.
That story URL was good, here's another (and I think more comprehensive), from a DC LUG meeting more than a year ago.
/linux/wireless.html
Thanks to Peter Teuben for doing this:
http://www.astro.umd.edu/~teu ben
- Serge Wroclawski
Has anyone done drivers for any of the Intel 1mb wireless towers or even the HPNA boards from various manufacturers that get 10mb over regular twisted pair phone lines?
I have three machines hooked together into one box that has a DSL connection. It's all done using D-Link HPNA stuff. Unfortunately everything has to run Windows currently because I have not found any Linux drivers for these boards. Anyone know of a solution?
It's nice to see an article on wireless networking, but this one's a bit too trivialised. It misses information and there are a few errors:
1. Lucent cards are 11MB
2. Lucent cards have Linux support, both directly from Lucent (binary module) and as 3rd party (pcmcia-cs).
3. Samsung's Linux support is 3rd party.
They also don't mention a number of other cards (3Com have a Linux-compatible one, Compaq have a Samsung-compatible one, Elsa do one, there's the cheapo non-interoperable 2Mbit ones I've forgotten the name of, and of course there's the Apple stuff), so don't take this as a complete list by any means. Nor do they mention that the linux-wlan project is only interested in a limited number of cards. Finally, they say nothing about 802.11b base stations, which (in my experience) cause the most confusion to people when they're buying wireless stuff.
Finally, mobile IP isn't really related to wireless networks - it's a means of allowing your machine to move around a network topology, rather than a building. It's not necessary to understand or to have a mobile IP system to use wireless network cards.
The WaveLAN/Orinoco gear also is supported under Linux - the newer PCMCIA source has drivers for the card included, and Lucent has a binary-only driver that you can download from their website and compile into the PCMCIA source. Both drivers work well.
I've got an article posted on my website that details setup and operation of the WaveLAN/Orinoco gear. You can get it by going to NullDevice.Net.
-- WildBill
Or better, the lack of them. The comfort of placing one computer downstairs in the living room and one upstairs in the bedroom is quite pleasing. I'm quite experienced with a product from Diamond Multimedia called Homefree. The only real problems of these cards are:
A) A bandwidth of about 1 Mbit. The next generation is supposed to have 11, but that's future music and
B) The fact that they only work correctly in wooden or at least the cheaper kind of homes. Sturdy concrete kind of structures usually block the signal.
I can really identify with you, so much.
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
Well - to start:
Bluetooth is one international standard. It works very well at VERY short range. It is not going to be a good setup for LANs - poor security, too slow, too unresponsive to change - but blows everything else away when it comes to phone earpieces, or scanner to portable printer connectivity. It also kills 802.11 devices in close proximity to it as its hop speed is so high.
802.11 is also international, and considerably better for a home LAN
802.11 - 2Mb Frequency Hopping - pretty solid, with good range. Not bad for industrial settings where end users have a telnet/3270/5250 application.
802.11b - 11Mb Direct Sequence - very solid, and very secure; signal can be at a lower level than rf interference, so can't be seen. Signal only appears when decoder with identical chipping set is used. I've had Quake 2 over a 5 mile link with directional antennas - no judder!
802.11b - 11Mb Frequency Hopping - An excellent choice for the home. Frequency hoppers are much cheaper than DS transmitters, and 11Mb gives much better throughput than 10BaseT (CSMA/CA overhead is less than half CSMA/CD)
802.nextgen - 25Mb radio, at 5GHz. Throughput - yummy, range - down a bit, unfortunately.
Cat 5 my house? No need with RF!!!
Frog51
You know a way to make 802.11b work as a LAN (ie, not just peer-to-peer) without an access point? Do tell.
Routing is a basic concept of TCP/IP networking. If you are so unfamiliar with it that you don't even know it exists, I would recommend you start here:
TCP/IP for Dummies, Fourth Edition
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The software that comes with it is Mac-only, but there is a Java application on the net that manages it. The management protocol is SNMP, so a native Linux application to manage it would be easy enough.
;)
IIRC the card inside is WaveLAN, so you might be able to use the Lucent WaveLAN tools on it.. Also, I've heard if you are interested in cracking the case you can stick a nice 14dB amplified omni antenna on it and get mega range.. I'm thinking of doing that to mine so I can get data out on the porch
Apple really nailed it on that one. No PC vendor comes close, and a comparable base station from Lucent or Cisco costs waay more..
Your Working Boy,
Via microwaves.
People have proposed oribiting solar collectors and microwaving it back to Earth or Luna.
Some problems:
-Any moisture in the atmosphere screws the method,
but that still leaves several deserts with 99% downlink.
-Beams spread out. Masers, solitons, etc. may get around this problem.
-Anything near the beam may get fried.
Well, Cabletron is an OEM of Lucent. They lack the same problem as any other OEM lacks: they are not allowed to write a fully featured open source driver for their cards (which means that the driver would allow the linux box as access point, for example), as they would have to sign an NDA to get the relevant information from Lucent.
The card inside the ABS is from WaveLAN, right, but the WaveLAN tools can not be used for the ABS. One thing that works (besides the java configurator named here several times) is the Configurator from KarlNet. This company actually writes all Lucent firmware and the firmware for the ABS is also written by them. Oh, you said "a comparable base station from Lucent ... costs way more": there is a nearly 100% comparable base station from Lucent, called "AP-500", which inside is actually the same as the Airport Base Station.
In 1993, before the collapse of Communism in the USSR, but in they heyday of Glasnost and Perestroika, I went on a school exchange trip to Minsk. One of our daytrips was to Minsk University, where we were shown a lab, and it was explained to us in halting English, that they were researching the "transmission of electricity without wires".
The room was dominated by two enormous steel balls, and every second a spark passed between them with a deafening "click". We recieved no further explanation.
All true.
What's the point of this story? Um... I like stories.
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Just transmit it over the 429 THz EM band!
I love gripes like this. There's always some sorehead who's seen something before and therefore thinks the universe is now informed about it. What's the problem, you lost ten seconds out of your day reading this and felt compelled to post some disdain-tinged little bitch? The world isn't going to conform to your specs. Deal with it.
"If I have seen further than other men, it is by stepping on their glasses." - Michael Swaine
For those of you here in Britain, check out consume.net. This is a movement to create a country wide peer to peer wireless network. Tres cool.
Well, that would be a savings of nearly $800-1000 (when you included 802.11b's access point and LAN cards together) and HomeRF now matches 802.11b's 11mbs. And what makes you think that either HomeRF and Bluetooth will only be Windows/Mac? My understanding is that Linux plans are in the works for both.
...read the article: it is about LAN's. Instead of making cables run trough you living room to connect two PC's you use wireless technology. (My mom would love it...she hates my network cables) It has nothing to do with cell-phones and the like. :-)
You are right that cell-phone communication is quite expensive, but it is completely offtopic here. WAP is a joke...
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Lately, there have been a couple of 802.11b cards come out that are pretty cheap - check out the Linksys WPC11 , which can be found for around $120 a pop (if you can find it in stock...) and also Addtron's AWP100 card - no info on their site, but they told me it has the PrismII chipset, which is what the AbsoVal guys are working on, I believe. It, too, is around $120.
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This article does not do a good job of talking about what products are available, or comparing them.
For one, Lucent WaveLAN cards run at 11Mbps, not 2 as the article states. In addition, Lucent provides binary x86 Linux drivers on their web site.
For another, it's not really important whether or not the card's vendors provide Linux drivers. What's most important is whether or not they work under Linux. The fact is most of these cards work using pcmcia-cs.
No mention is made of the access points, which are important if you want to easily hook up to your wired LAN. Of the ones I've tested, it comes down to two: Apple and Cisco. The Apple Airport can be configured via a third party Java client which works fine under Linux. It's also dirt cheap (~$280). The downside is that it is not a high performance solution, and it can only use one encryption key. If you want performance and flexibility, buy a Cisco. It can be configured via web, telnet, and serial interfaces. All encryption is done in hardware so it is far and away the fasted 802.11b solution I've seen. Most vendors do the encryption in software, and take about a 20% performance hit with it. Which would be fine, but you pretty much have to use encryption. If you're not, you are opening up your network connection to all your neighbors.
All the other access points I've tried use Windoze-only configuration clients (3Com and Lucent). Some of them try to prevent compatability by not allowing you to set the encryption keys directly (3Com and Apple(only applies if you use Apple's software instead of the Java client))
Overall, this stuff rocks though. I have an Apple Airport at home. Combined with my DSL line, it is awesome. I can use my laptop anywhere in the house. Sit on the sofa and play games, check email in the kitchen, whatever. The 802.11b is much faster than DSL, so you don't notice a performance hit at all.
I would also recommend only buying 802.11b 11Mbps hardware if you want to use it other places. There are two coding techniqes allowed in 802.11. One is Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS), which runs from 1Mbps to 11Mbps. The other is Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS) which maxes out at 2Mbps. The two are 100% incompatable. They will not communicate in any way at all (except possibly some interference.) So, if you buy cheap 2Mbps cards, there is a good chance that they are FHSS and will not work with 11Mbps DSSS equipment. Spend the extra bucks and get 802.11b equipment. You will appreciate the extra speed and compatability. If you can find 2Mbps DSSS cards, they should talk to 11Mbps equipment fine (at 2Mbps of course.)
what do you have to do to get the WaveLan cards to talk to the airport UFO base, though. I saw a mention on http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/Lin ux/Wireless.html of hacking the wavelan drivers to work with the airport base.
:)
from what I've been seeing, airport base + wavelan cards look like the right thing to do... I just need to make sure they do it with each other!
(and then I need to make a large antenna and see if I can get wireless access on campus...)
Lea
Well, that would be a savings of nearly $800-1000 (when you included 802.11b's access point and LAN cards together) and HomeRF now matches 802.11b's 11mbs.
Why would I be so foolish as to include the access point?
As for the "now matching" speed; I define "now" as "I can go into a store and buy one". Unless every web page I've checked is mistaken, 11Mbs HomeRF doesn't meet that qualification.
My understanding is that Linux plans are in the works for both.
Neither Vincent Cerf, Al Gore, nor God herself can transmit packets over a plan; it requires actual products with actual drivers.
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oops. sorry, bad form to reply to my own posts, but when I read a little more, I find that the wavelan driver was hacked to support the airport /cards/, not the base.
and since it's all 802.11b, it should work together, right?
Lea
Will that work point-to-multipoint (which is what I meant by a proper LAN)? So if I've got three or four wireless devices, I can serve them all simultaneously off a single 802.11b card in peer-to-peer mode with no need for an access point?
You know a way to make 802.11b work as a LAN (ie, not just peer-to-peer) without an access point? Do tell.
Would this really work? I thought that the magnetic field was more-or-less also fixed to the Earth's rotation (ignoring its ordinary non-rotationally related fluctuations)? Wouldn't coils attached to the Earth be stationary relative to the Earth's magnetic field?
These are the advantages of NOT running in ad-hoc mode:
a) Gateway/access point can act as a repeater
b) With multiple gateways, you can hop in a cellular fashion between access points as you roam.
Currently, all Linux drivers will only run the card in ad-hoc mode, with the exception of the absolute-value.com project. (Or at least, that's what I believe the difference between the AV project and the already-in-kernel drivers is.) I recall in a discussion with some other people a while ago that you can run a card in full access-point mode, but you have to implement a full 802.11b stack in the card driver. I was then told that the only cards such a stack was implemented for were Harris PRISM chipsets. Note that the AV project listed all of their supported cards as being based on or similar to PRISM based cards.
Peer-to-peer 802.11 may be a LAN, but it's a pretty sucky LAN compared to the features you can get with the same hardware and the right driver.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Wireless Electricity Has Been Done. And A long time ago by Tesla in 1899.
Here's The Link
"Tesla spent his remaining funds on his other inventions and culminated his efforts in a major breakthrough in 1899 at Colorado Springs by transmitting 100 million volts of high-frequency electric power wirelessly over a distance of 26 miles "
that linux is getting more and more support from the HW markets. On another note, I can see how this can be a great thing for transmeta if the prices of wireless hw drop. From what I understand, transmetta is aiming to create various linux appliances. Well, what about actuall _appliances_. Web access from the kitchen, the bathroom, and the kids play room, all utilizing wireless technology and access terminals with a small footprint. I know for one that I want to have access to various computing tools in other places than just my desk. And there is no real easy way to do alot of wiring without doing it when the building is first constructed. just a thought
"sex on tv is bad, you might fall off..."
I lost my concept of community when my community lost all concept of me.
The links are the best part: dynamically updated routing, based on your position. Mmm...
I hope to be able to use this someday, at least with a web pad. I don't want to mess with a laptop, because they're too small and cramped, but a wireless webpad appeals to me.
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
This is something that Nikola Tesla was working on, actually. The entire theory behind the Tesla Coil was that it could transmit electricity through the air to be converted into useful power at the home. The problem was, Westinghouse dropped his support of it because it became difficult to charge people for it.
Another idea of Tesla's was the idea of using the Earth's rotation and magnetic field to generate electricity. You could set up giant coil towers that would be dragged through the magnetic field via the Earth's rotation. This could be converted and then retransmitted through Tesla Coils to power peoples homes, cars, airplanes... The possibilities of wireless power become almost endless.
My theory is not as strong as it used to be, though. Anyone else have a more thorough grounding in these ideas?
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"You spilled my egg... I needed that egg."
this is all fine and good... (another cluster rant) but I'd like to see a cluster use this technology and also... has anyone ever tried using this for a cable/dsl router system???
Well, I hadn't heard of it, so I guess s/he wasn't kidding me. Or does the fact that I hadn't heard of it mean that s/he was?
there is a nearly 100% comparable base station from Lucent, called "AP-500", which inside is actually the same as the Airport Base Station.
;).. A nice thing about the UFO is that it has an integrated modem as well as an ethernet bridge/router.. (mine's setup simply as a bridge to my existing ethernet, works like a champ from base to Cube about 30' away thru a concrete floor)
I hadn't seen it (I deal with 'enterprise' gear mainly
Your Working Boy,
Didn't Benjamin Franklin tap into this using a kite, a key and a storm?
Maybe my brain fell out of calibration this morning, but I can't find what you're talking about there under 'products' or 'projects'. As far as inexpensive routers go, if someone can use one that isn't wireless, I really like my Linksys . It works great as a router/firewall and lets me connect all of my home computers to the internet via a single cable modem.
"If I have seen further than other men, it is by stepping on their glasses." - Michael Swaine
http://edge.mcs.drexel.edu/GICL/people/sevy/airpor t/index.html
Nicolai
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled"
The article really only delves into what the techonology itself is, and doesn't even mention how well these devices work under Linux. There is a stunning article in the August issue of Linux Magazine that you can find here that demonstrates setting up wireless networking in your home and incorporating it into existing networks. Unfortunately, I don't think the article is featured online. If you'd like to see it and can't find a copy of the magazine, feel free to mail Linux Magazine and ask.
Interested in open source engine management for your Subaru?
yes, it seems scary. I have no idea how it works or what the risks are. I do know that I've seen it/done it dozens of times and the light bulb glows on and off. Eerie.
Anybody know how it works? I'm trying to float my laptop now, I'll let you know how it works.
HomeRF is just going to cause problems. Who needs it? Another incompatable standard running in the same frequency band which offers no advantages whatsoever. At best, it will work just as well as 802.11b. There is nothing about HomeRF vs. 802.11b which makes one cheaper than the other. Apple is pushing 802.11b access points for under $300. Is HomeRF going to be less? I doubt it.
What makes this stuff cheap is economies of scale. If the same folks that are spending all this effort competing with 802.11b just started making and selling 802.11b equipment we would all be better off. They could help grow the 802.11b market which would push prices down. But no, it's another example of companies trying to segment the market and screw the consumer to jack up their bottom line.
There's a great mailing list for wireless on isp-planet.com. Someone posted this link a while back for Linux info: http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/Lin ux/
Enjoy!
Most of the ISP's are either begging for or are trying to develop a Linux box with wireless ability for distribution. Great for having cheap access points everywhere. Probably put me out of work though!
Scott Plumlee
I am running the Airport as a bridge, with my Linux server as the DHCP server with dynamic DNS and IP masquerader. I run it this way so that I save one static IP number (otherwise I would have to give the Airport a static IP), and so that I get dynamic DNS (which the Airport doesn't provide). The laptops use the Lucent Wavelan "Gold" with the kernel Wavelan driver and the Debian PCMCIA and wireless-tools packages.
This works great for toting the laptop around the house so that I can dip onto the net while watching the baby, etc. And it's cheap, too!
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
First, peer-to-peer _is_ a LAN. Local area network, right?
But if you want it to talk to the rest of the network, look at a good article at NullDevice. Just add a wireless card to your existing Linux router....
http://www.nasatech.com/Briefs/ Aug 00/NPO20641.html
Were they are talking about 50Vdc from a simple patch array. I've also heard the Koreans are pretty interested in this stuff. At a conference I was at recently they talked about a 100kW system that they'd had a demonstrator of!!!!
A good reference is
W. C. Brown The history of power transmission by radiowaves, IEEE Trans MTT, Vol MTT-32, No 9, Sept 1984
Cheers
D.
Signal Ground did a review of Enterasys Networks' Wireless LAN offerings. They are 802.11b compliant (11Mbs), offer Linux drivers and the sources, and well, you can read the article for yourself.
This is supposed to be great art. So why does it look like a bunch of decapitated naked people? -- Calvin
Given the choice between HomeRF and 802.11b, I'd choose 802.11b, but the cost difference my sway me.
D.
I believe the AC that said 26 is right. I can't remember for sure, but I think that's about the time I started getting that bonus.
Bite my yammer.
The big advantage of the 802.11a type systems is that they use the 5GHz frequency band and not the 2.4GHz ISM band that current wavelen systems use. The 2.4GHz band is pretty full, and also has pretty bad interference from your microwaves ovens. But the 5GHz bands that have recently been allocated to wireless lan systems are complete empty.
As for BlueTooth (ie. 802.15.1), BlueTooth II is also specified but not in production yet, and the 802.15 standard commitee is currently even considering 802.15.3 a 20Mb/s version of BlueTooth which will probably appear in about 3 or 4 years.
D.
Just as another datapoint, I have been running the webgear aviator 2.4 cards under linux for a year now, and they work like a champ.
I got both PCMCIA cards, complete with 2 ISA adapters, for $150 or so from buy.com.
Not the fastet throughput (around 75k bytes (not bits!) per second), but more then adequate for most applications... it is still 10 to 20 times faster then your cable modem / dsl connection.
Bill
Mathematically impossible requirements are technically not against policy.
But if there is wireless technology (I mean when) brought to linux I hope it is easy to use and maintain. Wireless is going to big in the home. I think more so than at the office. Wireless could help spread linux even further if there were a few devices that ran some sore of linux with ipchains pre-configured and integrated into the users existing network easily. A few months without his/her firewall-router crashing and knowing it runs linux might be enough to lure more people to the linux side of the house.
"If ignorance is bliss, why aren't there more happy people in the world?"
It'll never catch on.
The article speaks forever about the 2.4ghz band, without ever mentioning the word "Bluetooth" which operations on 2.402ghz. Odd.
Also, does anyone know whether this 2.4ghz band is going to work around the world? Frequency Allocation nonsense has messed up US vs World cellphones (quite apart from the fact that they also use different protocols - Time Division Multiple Access (World) vs Code Division Multiple Access (most of the US)). It would be no good to bring your nice wireless laptop to another country, try to use a network printer, and end up crashing someone else's fridge. Anyway, why do Bluetooth freaks keep using fridges as an example?
More than my two pence worth.
--Remove SPAM from my address to mail me
You need wireless electricity? There are these neat things called batteries that you can put into laptops so that you can carry and run them just about anywhere for several hours without being plugged in. Ever heard of 'em? They're really neat.
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"A witty saying proves nothing" - Voltaire
Stand under a tree in a nasty rain strom.
:-)
Of course, the problem is one of control. Will you get killed or merely sterilized?
As long as you're out of the breeding pool...
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
So Screw wireless - I'm going GigaBit! Another Syskonnect card just arrived this morning. The manufacturer wrote the linux driver and the card is listed in the kernel and on the Mandrake NIC menu when installing... And it Rocks!
Adults are obsolete children. - Dr. Seuss
But like I said, this is an artificial segmentation of the market. There is no reason that you can't have "business" grade 802.11b equipment with say, hardware encryption, connectors for external antenna's, support for thousands of simultaneous clients, a high price point (like Cisco). While at the same time having "home" grade 802.11b with no external antenna provision, software encryption, and a low price point (like Apple).
It's like saying that we should have two differnet processor standards because businesses like to buy higher quality PC's than most home users. It doesn't make sense. You can make cheap x86 PC's, and you can make expensive ones. Just like you can make "business grade" 802.11b and "consumer grade" 802.11b. But don't you want your software to work in both places? Does it make sense for me to have two wireless cards for my laptop? One for home and one for work? Of course not.
Like I said, this is just Intel and some other folks trying to segment the market so that they can dominate that segement. My opinion is that rather than compete in the 802.11 segment, they want to create their own segment. The fact that this strategy offers no advantage to the consumer whatsoever is irrelevant to them.
I'm working on some more visually pleasing console monitoring tools (currently hacked into iwspy, soon to be using a nice library I'm working on), and an SNMP module for ucd-snmp. If anyone is interested, skip on over to http://unitycode.org/main/OpenSourc e/W OWLIB/.
Intel and a bunch of others are pushing HomeRF, which will be cheaper than 802.11b. And Bluetooth, which will be cheaper yet, will be able to provide point-to-point and point-to-multimpoint wireless data at 1Mbs, although initially its functionality as a full LAN will be pretty limited (no more than 8 devices per piconet, for example)