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.

Comments

Wireless LANs at USENIX, airports, etc

[ckd]

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....

When was this article written?

[Xref]

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"...

Funny you should mention that.

[nharmon]

Wireless Electricity has been around, in theory, or a while.

Of course, Nikola Tesla was way before his time.

Er...what about Airport?

[Ethelred Unraed]

Stupid question, perhaps, but why on Earth isn't Airport mentioned in the article? After all, it's Linux-compatible (at least I remember seeing some drivers for it in recent linux-pmac kernels) as well as Mac-compatible, easy to install, configure, etc. etc. etc.

cya

Ethelred

A little addition

[Ethelred Unraed]

I did some double-checking, and yes, Airport works with Linux/PPC -- Benjamin Herrenschmidt ported the WaveLAN driver and got it to work with the Apple Airport cards.

cya

Ethelred

Factual inaccuracies and extra info

[Froggie]

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.

wireless electricity exists

[peter303]

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.

Re:Health and wireless

[mOdQuArK!]

Heh - maybe there'll be an evolutionary mutation which will allow our bodies to ABSORB all this radiation and transform it into energy that our cells can use, so we can stay energized in a high EM field without eating any calories.

On the other hand, this is much more likely to happen for bacteria first, so that's probably not such a good idea...unless we figure out the genes necessary to do it to ourselves first :)

Wireless Electricity

[clinko]

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 "

It's a good read, but...

[bconway]

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.