Whither 802.11a in Linux?

Revar asks: "My local net admin recently installed an 802.11a 54Mbps wireless network. Under Windows, the speed is great and at 5Ghz, it has much less interference then the 2.4Ghz 802.11b wireless. The problem is, I cannot seem to find any 802.11a PCMCIA cards that have Linux or MacOS X support. Are there any, or is no-one actually working on this?" Whenever new hardware is released patience, when wating for Linux support, is a necessary virtue.

Comments

Virtue

[kzadot]

Whenever new hardware is released patience, when wating for Linux support, is a necessary virtue.

No, its not necessary at all. A much more neccessary (and more easy to obtain) virtue would be the motivation, and consideration for the open source movement that bought you linux in the first place, to attempt to actually hack up a quick driver yourself...

Re:Virtue

[Usquebaugh]

WTF,
who modded this up?

Easy to write device drivers! Hmmm, for some prehaps but for most of us it's not. Next time you need a new piece for your car I hope the mechaninc points you to a lathe.

Re:Virtue

[gorillasoft]

Whenever new hardware is released patience, when wating for Linux support, is a necessary virtue.

No, its not necessary at all. A much more neccessary (and more easy to obtain) virtue would be the motivation, and consideration for the open source movement that bought you linux in the first place, to attempt to actually hack up a quick driver yourself...

Oh, yes, of course - because every Linux user out there knows how to program device drivers. How silly of them to think that the Linux movement actually wants people other than programmers to use the operating system.

Re:Virtue

[HughsOnFirst]

Virtue != easy
Hmm...
reminds me of something else entirely...

Re:Virtue

[dubl-u]

How silly of them to think that the Linux movement actually wants people other than programmers to use the operating system.

It depends on what you mean by "the Linux movement". Sure, everybody wants lots of users. But very few people are interested in signing up to be the personal slaves of people who don't know a one from a zero and would like to stay that way.

A lot of open-source software gets written under the itch-scratching model. I want software to do X, so I write it until I'm happy, and maybe I write a little more because it's fun. Somebody else who wants X+Y writes the Y. But if no programmer wants X+Y+Z, then Z may never get done, no matter how many non-programmers want it.

This isn't meant to be exlusionary. Quite the opposite: a lot of Zs do get written for fun or out of generosity, and I've never dealt with an open-source developer who wasn't immensely welcoming towards those who wanted to learn enough so that they could contribute.

But by and large, the rule is "patches welcome". If you think "the Linux movement" should have better driver support, then you should start writing drivers or assist somebody who can.

d-link 650

[Tomah4wk]

Dlink produce a something 650 card that works very well. Also the cisco airnet, man orinco cards that use lucent chipsets. Just because a cards manufacturer doesnt claim to support linux doesnt mean they dont. Go to pcmcia-cs.sourceforge.net, do a search for wvlan on google, or just 'wireless networing linux'. Slashdot really is not an alterntative to a simple google search. Use the web, thats what its for. This really is an incredibly simple question to answer yourself.

Re:d-link 650

[humanasset]

That 802.11b card from D-Link does work well. But, last time I tried I couldn't get WEP to work with the Linux drivers. It also is only a 802.11b card. The new 802.11a cards operate at a different frequency and a much higher speed.

Re:d-link 650

[Anonymous Coward]

He asked here, because the info for 802.11a for linux is not out there. I have tried all the searches you mention, plus searches using the model name (DWL-A650 and DWL-A520, the DWL-650 is the 802.11b model which is supported) and 'linux driver'. No results talking about drivers for these cards come up.

Re:d-link 650

[Enry]

Don't waste your time with WEP. If you want to secure your transmission, use SSL/SSH for web sites. Or alternatively, PPTP to a landline PC.

the problem

[tps12]

This is the attitude that holds Linux back. People will bitch and bitch about how they can't print, can't play Doom, and can't watch DVDs.

Well, boo fucking hoo. Linux Torvalds wrote himself a whole goddamned operating system, for Jesus sake. If you want a driver, write the damn thing yourself. You owe it to the community who gave you Linux in the first place.

The one problem with Free Software that I see, is the use of the word "free." No matter how many times we say "free as in speech," there is a huge contingent of doofuses who just hear "free" and the little dollar signs appear in their eyes. Everyone wants something for nothing, and the term misleads people into expecting it.

So, to all you Linux users who whine about missing features, unsupported hardware, stability issues, and security holes: pitch in and help us out, or please go back to Windows. We are all better off without you.

Re:the problem

[Anonymous Coward]

This should be modded up.

Unfortunately, having a flame-baiter like tps12 auto-modded to the same level as the page-wideners and goatsex ascii art assholes showcases a real problem with slashdot.

Cisco cards will have Linux and OS/X support.

[Mordant]

Cisco are very good about supporting both Linux and Mac - they will have the drivers, once they have the cards.

Right now, their 1200 access-point does 802.11a, but it's primarily focused on AP-to-AP wireless backbone connectivity (the AP can hold both an 802.11a and an 802.11b radio simultaneously). When they come out with the cards later this year, they'll give you the driver support you want.

Some info on possible 802.11-a Linux support

[j-turkey]

Check this out for some more info.

The short of it is a description of 802.11-a. The main page contains tons of info to get you started working on your own drivers -- or there may be some gems in there too (I.e. identifying a 5 GHz card or driver that works with your system).


-Turkey

Sure, all hardware is documented all the time...

[Andy Dodd]

More often than not, even Linus couldn't write a driver for the cards in question, as there is no programming info available.

802.11 *a* not *b*

[Andy Dodd]

The D-Link DWL-650 is an 802.11b 2.4 GHz card - It works wonderfully under Linux (Prism2 chipset)

The 650H (high-power 100 mW) does not work well at all - These appear to be repackaged Symbol cards - Expect frequent lockups, if it works at all. Someone was working on a driver for the Symbol Spectrum24, but work stopped.

The 650+ (Enhanced 802.11 - 22 MBps, apparently a "halfway" implementation of 802.11g) uses the TI ACX100 chipset - Also no drivers for this exist.

And for 802.11a, the DWL-A650 has no support whatsoever.

Re:802.11 *a* not *b*

[systemaster]

sorry this is off topic in general, but direct question to your post. You say that the 650H locks up alot/don't work. My 650 locks up all the time, but doesn't say 'H' I'm thinking it might be labled wrong. All the '650's i have seen are black plastic ends. Also the picture on the box is black, mine is gray. Perhaps mine is a '650H' but some moron put '650' on???

My buddies black 650 works fine and automagically under redhat, mine seems to work under RH, but just seems to lockup after a random number of minutes, only way to get it working again is reboot. Then it works fine??? Any ideas or thoughts on what I can try???

Re:802.11 *a* not *b*

[Andy Dodd]

Hmm... Interesting.

All 650s I've seen have a grey antenna housing, not black. It's a sort of "mushroom" shape - Wider at the tip than the base, with a single green status LED. Works BEAUTIFULLY with the linux-wlan package (I know it'll work with the Orinoco drivers, but gives some errors and in general makes me paranoid...)

The pictures of the 650H I've seen have a "tombstone"-like black antenna housing. (Which jives with the suspicion that they are repacked Symbol cards.)

Re:Cisco cards will have OS/X support.

[GoodmansonD]

http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/05/03/ 1934243

Agreed, with a reservation.

[Jon Howard]

I almost entirely agree with your sentiment, but I don't believe that software could truly be considered Free unless it is free for everyone - even rude, greedy imbeciles.

the problem is also with people like you..

[systemaster]

....who say hey I don't want to, you do it.

OK I will.

Just provide me(a person with some experince programming and some electronics) with the information on how to start writing drivers. How do drivers in linux work? How does one start probing a piece of hardware to figure out how to interact with it. How do I write the driver once I have that info? Give me an example of how someone took a new piece of hardware probed it and figured out how the driver should be written, a step-by-step example and the thought proccess involved. Not just the I probled these memory addresses and wrote this line of code to do this and this line does this...I mean the whole friggin thought proccess that one could read and use to learn to do it on other hardware.

And for that matter keep going once you start documenting, explain how to write everything for linux so people like me who only got tought MS programing in school can help The Cause(TM). [OK so I also learned shell scriptin, but thats not really programming] And while your at it GPL the documenting and post it as HTML, and link to it when you rant like above. At least with Windows if I can't find a piece of software I HAVE to have, I can write it up....and I suspect I'm not the only one in this position. Hey being real for a second, MS shitty as they are, VB is easy to use. So is their C++ in studio 6.0

One of the best /. discussions I have read is this where posters actually said how to do shit, or linked to how to do shit. I mean your asking people to be part of the solution not the problem, and you don't say how to be part of the solution, gee wiz man!