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Open Source Hotspots

Posted by michael on from the freebie dept.

darthcamaro writes "Not that long ago it was a serious pain to get an 802.11b card to work on a Linux machine. [ed note: We love you Jean Tourrilhes!] Wi-Fi Planet has a story where they do an overview of a wad of open source Wi-Fi projects. Did you realize that you don't even need to spend the dough for an Access Point? - standard Linux routing is enough to create your own access point, with a few other tools like Public IP's Zone CD or the Less Networks Hotspot server, you can freely create a hotspot and manage it all in minutes. I guess all this means that both Wi-Fi and open source are literally 'everywhere'."

3 of 206 comments (clear)

  1. Location? by drewzhrodague · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Did you know that you can find the locations of some of these projects, by searching for SSIDs? Also, if you know part of the MAC address (for the vendor), and the location, you can pair it down, and see maps of their coverage. Of course, this is all from wardriving data, uploaded by our users -- go out and wardrive!

    --
    Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
  2. My homebrew router by j0hndoe · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I've had an iPaq 3650 in a dual-pcmcia sleeve, running handhelds.org Linux as my wireless router for several years. I've never had to reboot it, either. It's silent, fits on my windowsill, and has a built-in UPS. :)

  3. Device drivers have a loong way to go. by eechuah · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Hi,

    I'll probably get modded to oblivion for this, but the support of wifi for linux is dismal. Many cards don't work, and those that work, many features don't work (like WEP!!). This is obviously no fault of the community, since they're doing their best to reverse engineer hardware, but asking people to create AP's using Linux when most cards don't even FUNCTION is a little weird.

    (I know what I'm talking about. I've bought 2 wifi cards for my Mythtv box, and both only work partially, even though they're reported as "working" by the HW compatibility list).