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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.
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.
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
-Turkey
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.
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.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
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.