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Jean Tourrilhes On Linux Wireless LAN
mcleodnine writes "Jean Tourrilhes of the Linux Wireless LAN Howto project took some time to answer a few questions from members at LinuxQuestions.org. Among some of the more interesting commments was his pick of best and worst Open Source friendly vendors ('Some of those TI engineers even sent me e-mails criticising some features of the Wireless Extensions'), an opinion or two about the Next Big Thing in wireless (MIMO), and a poke in the eye for OS zealots of any religion."
what i want to knwo is when can we turn these hotspots into voip transmission towers for wireless viop phones?
"I actually believe that OS zealotry is doing a disservice to our community, because if you force somebody into something against his will, you run the risk of creating negative experiences. And, ultimately, what matters is not the OS you use, but what you give to the world, you are not interviewing me because I use Linux ;-)"
Finally, I'm sick of the whole "FreeBSD is dying!" "Microsoft kills babies!" "Linux is stoled code!" "Haiku is actually a freeform poem!" stuff. Just use whatever you want... ok?
It's hard to describe those comics to non-french speakers, because the french-speaking comic culture is vastly more diverse, mainstream and serious than in other languages (either manga or US comics), and this precise type of comic has no equivalent.
I don't think so. Nope, not one bit.
Seems to me that the most fervent zealots of a particular OS are simply just narrow-minded or don't know much beyond their own little world. You see countless developers (y'know, people who do things) decrying zealots, while the zealots themselves just kinda sit there, making everyone else look bad with their banter, and don't really contribute anything other than fanboyism.
Kill em all I say.
Our company was considering going with Ti's TX100 802.11b chipset about a year ago, to build our product around. Then we did our homework.
Seems a bunch of people signed onto a petition to get Ti to release the specs for their TX100 chipset, so they could develop the drivers Ti was refusing to release. When Ti ignored it, they called the BBB on their ass, citing false advertisement (they claim the chipset is supported in Linux)...And they STILL ignored it.
With that being said, put your money where your mouth is. Buh-bye Ti, Helloooooo, Intersil.
What is the best, least expensive wireless USB NIC for linux?
Ok, mod this as troll bait if necessary and I know that email interviews can home in on minutae, but if this guy is a person of interest, aren't there better questions to ask? Was there no moderator screening the questions?
Mod me troll, if you must, I can't help it.
Unless your time is not of the essence!
Now if only Linksys/Netgear/D-Link could (and I don't see why they can't) make an affordable wireless bridge+hub/gateway that costs in the same ballpark as a wireless router. (A Netgear bridge costs almost 2x as much a wireless router/gateway)
And while at it, they shoult also put out some clear specs so the CompUsa/BB salespeople know the difference between a bridge and an access point.
I've been using Linux for a while now, and have been interested in moving to wireless for quite some time. I'm hesitant though because of all the problems that can come with cutting edge hardware in Linux. It would really help if a few Linux users who have tried a lot of wireless gear could make some hardware recommendations for the rest of us.
What are some no-headache brands of wireless gear for Linux? What brands should be avoided? Are some distros better for wireless than others?
(I realize that some of this may be in the linked article, but the article appears to contain a complete list that requires a lot of time and effort to sort through).
thanks in advance,
dbc
haven't you heard? BSD is dying!!! I know, I read it on Slashdot.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
pas lui, que je sache. alors faut arreter de generaliser, OK?
Stereotypes, there must be more to life... -Blur
I find it interesting that Linux has "issues" with wireless technology (or any technology for that matter), but yet Linux has all the more interesting tools for wireless whereas other OSes seem to be lacking in them.
Now, where was I on this A1200...
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
About a year and a half ago, I bought me one of those linksys wireless cards for an older (400MHz PC) running RH7.3 or something like that. For the fun of it, I decided I'd ask the salesfolk at Best Buy whether it was compatible with Linux. The answer I got was that it would be difficult to find drivers for it, and that to save me the grief, he recommended I get a LAN-Bridge instead.
I ignored the advice and bought the card anyway. (Of course I had done some research beforehand...enough to know it possibly worked, anyway) I got it running with the wlan-ng drivers.
Later on when I had more money, I decided to get me a laptop. Again, did my homework to see what would and wouldn't work. Again, a trip to best buy encountered a tech/sales guy -- whom I asked the question "will it run Linux?" After spouting off a few acronyms of certifications he has, he proceeds to tell me that Bill Gates has bought Linux and that we won't even be talking about it a year from now (he's got about 2 months left of that year...better act fast!) Then if I wanted to run a linux server on a laptop (no I don't want to run a server...just a desktop -- 'um, same thing') -- that it would be really slow. The only hope I have of running it comfortably would be on an Alienware system.
"So why don't you want to run XP?" "It's got a large system requirement, it has serious security issues, and overall I can't say I like it." "Have you looked into using XP Pro?" "Um, I already don't want to pay for the OS, you're recommending I pay MORE instead?" "Well, XP Pro isn't going to cost you that much more..." "Thank you for your time. I think I'm going to go home and rethink my strategy."
Went home thinking "jackass" and proceeded to get a Dell...which I'm using to write this post...now on a machine running Mandrake 10CE...with all the functionality I need.
Zealotry or ignorance? I'm not sure. To this day I smile whenever I go into a Best Buy -- thinking I should pick up a piece of hardware and ask whether it works with Linux just for the stories they may give me.
I think that this helped a lot in the development of 802.11 networks: it offered a good opporunity for researchers to work together with standards and common cards, and fastened applications that shoved some weaknesses of the 802.11 industry's first implementations: WIFI sniffing, WEP weaknesses... So that industry could improve its weaknesses.
I read the article. I've browsed the FAQ and HOWTO and other assorted documentation many times in the past.
The one question most people want to know is what manufacturer/models are compatible, where to buy them, and what drivers to use. When you go to your retail store of choice they often will not list what chipsets they use in their wireless cards. Knowing which chipsets are compatible isn't that helpful if you can't match it definitively with a product.
I ended up going the safe route and ordering some aeronets because I didn't want to play roulette, and I couldn't find a new orinocco-based card for sale anywhere quickly.
Has someone out there discovered this business opportunity and created a web store specifically geared to linux-friendly hardware? Buy their card,download some linked drivers, and you're good to go. That would be easy. Last time I looked the regular linux suppliers let me down.
He mentions (rightly I think) that it would be nice to have worked out ipsec better rather than drive it's basic functionality down to the link layer of all the different things that would need security.
Why hasn't IPSec taken off more (or some other similar setup)? I don't know enough to know what the tough bits might be.
If you don't have problems 'stealing' other peoples bandwidth, there is an open AP on almost every residental street corner.
I can get to 4 open networks from my house in Aurora!
People are buying WAP enabled routers for their DSL/Cable modems and I'd say about 70% (if not more) run with the defaults, maybe changing the admin password...maybe.
The problem is people are not educated on wireless security, and why bother? They refuse to believe that someone is going to hijack their network and release a virus, break into another network or some other criminal task...it's like AIDS, it won't happen to ME.
"Some things have to be believed to be seen." - Ralph Hodgson
I still can't get it work on linux...
That's it. i'm naming my boxes at home Asterix, Tin-Tin, and Tenticale monster 3 (because french comics, while diverse, just don't capture every facet of human interest)
The Neo-Bohemian Techno-Socialist
OS zealotry is doing a disservice to our community, because if you force somebody into something against his will, you run the risk of creating negative experiences.
The problem is not so much that it *forces* anybody to use a system like Linux (because it's pretty much impossible for an opinion to be that powerful in the face of economic and political reality), but that it serves to blind people to the potential pitfalls that await, thus leading them to make a wrong decision for their situation. NO system is perfect (even Linux and *gasp*! Mac OS X). ALL have pitfalls depending on what you're using your computer for. In many cases, Windows *is* the best choice, although improvements in KDE and Gnome are making Windows a less obvious choice. And of course, arguing in favour of a system (or a methodology like open-source) is perfectly acceptable, as long as both sides are rational and can concede that the other side has positive attributes as well. Thus, both sides learn from the other and take what they've learned to improve themselves. Thus, honest evaluation leads to progress and growth, which is one of the fundamental tenets of capitalism, the free market, and all that... Of course, the ability to meet halfway is now called "appeasement" and is labeled as a "liberal" trait, which is apparently synonymous with "evil" or "corrupt". Zealotry exists in politics of all types, and is a great temptation, since it's so easy to believe that the world is black and white, good vs. evil, and that there is nothing to learn from the other side and that their arguments are all irrational and unfounded. Zealotry is a glass ceiling on self-improvement.
Zealotry in any form is inherently dishonest because zealots consciously or unconsciously hide the faults of their beloved systems while simultaneously proclaiming their greatness. This does lead to bad experiences (and I'm talking from experience!).
The UPSIDE of being a Linux zealot as opposed to a Windows or Mac zealot is that because the system is very open, any roadblocks you may encounter are likely soon to be fixed, or are fixable if you know a programmer who accepts payment in beer and pizza (which is all of them). I've hit roadblocks in Mac OS X that have no solution, and none seems to be coming... and [zealotry on] Windows itself *IS* a roadblock! [zeatotry off]
I'm not normally an irrational zealous dickhead, but I figure "When in Rome..."
some of the words and specs around if you want to dunk this troll bait in the water. Man this is an old one.
All this talk about closed hardware and non-vendor support reminds me of Diamond Video cards from 1997. Diamond was a video card company based on S3 chips and wouldn't give details on the hardware; therefore, to setup a Linux machine you had to guess at the settings or use someone else's trial and error data. Now does anyone today know whom Diamond manufacturing is? Very people know unless you happened to own one of those cards that were good on windows machine.
Thus to the point, I wonder if there is a Mathematical Function that can be plotted about a company's success, not quite directly related to Linux support but some hardware layer support, owing to its success?
Southern Linux, a company here in Savannah, GA supplied the Trade center for the G8 Summit with Linux wifi routers. pics available at www.simontek.net/pics/G8
SimonTek
My complaints from the Intel driver PoV...
I also had some concernsregarding wifi really just the comment about the 4 wifi adapters I have trouble with... on every laptop I try them on...
1. MA401
2. MA111
3. IW2100
4. MA401(newer revision... don't remember ottomh)
Default kernel PCMCIA, Host-ap, wireless ng, pcmcia-cs... and now I'm just pissed... so I don't bother. Apple here I come.
I actually got JJT to get RH9 working on my laptop; I was in HPLabs in Palo Alto, cornered him and refused to leave till it was going. It only took half an hour.
Not his fault though -RH9.0's defaults were towards PCMCIA cards, not mini-PCI, but it still shows the problems with mainstream linux.
Of course, that was last year. This weekend I stuck SuSE 9.1 on an old laptop, it found the netgear PC card, bonded to the (open) WLAN and was on the net, no network config dialog boxes at all.
As hinted at in this interview, the future of wireless networking revolves around many variations on a few core themes: diversity, versatility, and scalability.
Diversity is accomplished through MIMO and other technologies like beam steering to provide a robust communication channel between wireless devices.
Versatility comes with open source firmware / drivers and software defined radios. There is no way manufacturers can foretell all of the desirable uses and functionality consumers want in their products. The most useful systems will be those that are versatile and can adapt to new protocols, encodings, etc.
Scalability can be achieved through robust ad-hoc routing protocols and decentralized security methods to produce a system that scales easily as participating nodes join and part the network without complicated provisioning or a reliance on centralized and limited backhaul or access point functionality.
There is still a lot of interesting work to be done in these areas, but the real fun starts in the applications that will utilize these new ad-hoc networking infrastructures.
Amazingly, after a few hours of tinkering, I just got onto slashdot using a Broadcom BCM5406 g card. Guess what the first article I read is.
Broadcom won't release drivers or specs for their wireless chipset and prevent any OEMs who use thier chipset from doing so. So there are only really two choices, other than throwing their hardware in the trash, or using Windows, and those are Linuxxant WLAN Driverloader or open source NdisWrapper.
I chose NdisWrapper because it is OS and I did not have to pay for it.
In the future I will simply refuse to purchase any hardware from companies who will not release driver specifications.
Then I wondered..... and pulled out my Knoppix 3.2 CD. Note that this isn't even the latest and greatest version. It booted up. I started Mozilla, and was on the net in no time flat. It recognized the card and loaded the driver with no interaction on my part.
Now every time I boot the machine, WinXP complains that the wireless card isn't inserted. *sigh*
This was my very first experience with wireless, and it was pretty painless. Take a Knoppix CD to your local Best Buy, Circuit City, or whatever and try out the cards for compatability.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Are there any USB 802.11 devices that simply work, without kernel recompiling or similar extra work? :)
:)
It would be great to add this to the list of Things Good To Demo On Random Laptops With Knoppix! Actually, what would be even better to demonstrate is the USB WiFi+kitchen scoop long-distance antenna
Shoebox computers in particular tend to have precious PCI slots, and (unless you add an semi-expensive* adaptor) no PCMCIA slots, so this would be a great way to add wireless networking to them.
timothy
*semi-expensive in this case means in particular "as expensive as the low-end USB wireless sticks."
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Last time i checked, my wireless router didnt really care what OS was on the machines attached to it..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
There is a solution to your problem: go to Best Buy type store and buy a card. Specifically search for the card lease likely to have linux support. TI chipsets are good and popular. (yeah there is a reverse engineered driver, but it doesn't work good despite increadable efforts) Open box and attempt to get it to work. Fail. Place everything back in back and return it, citing poor linux support. Repeat until you get bored, they run out of cards to try, or you get something that by chance works.
Find a card elsewhere that has linux support (unless you found one above...), and buy it.
The idea here is Best Buy has power. If they start seeing a lot of perfectly good wireless cards coming back that costs them money, and they don't like that. So they will start checking to see whats going on, and all the return counter clerks will tell them poor linux support is the reason. Ideally Best Buy will tell anyone who wants a wireless card on their shelves that it must have linux drivers. Or maybe they will at least require a some indication of which cards work with linux.
In general b card are likely to work, but there are exceptions. b+g cards almost never work, and a+b+g cards normally work. In general will many exceptions.
Are there *any* PCI 802.11g cards that work with linux? I understand there is a 3Com product but it's expensive and apparently not readily available.
The wireless hardware selection situation really stinks. Sure there's a long list of compatable hardware, but so much of it consists of discontinued products, or products where another unit of the same make and model will be *totally* different, that the hardware compatability lists don't really tell the story as it is; which is to say, a blight.
It is currently impossible to make a purchase order for a wireless PC card or PCI card because of it. You cannot spec by model number, and unless you're really lucky, vendors don't know how to respond to requests by chipset.
I don't think there is a single 802.11g PCI card available in the "consumer commodity" price range that has a supported chipset, and I think the manufacturers know damned well that's the case, and I think they like it that way.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
I just received my ActionTec GT-701(?) last week, and find that it's running a linux kernel. It's got 802.11g, a single 10/100 port, functions as a USB NIC, and also happens to be my new DSL modem.
If anyone's curious, reply to this and I'll log into it again and get the kernel version specifics.
--
What was your Prism problem? The only thing not there on Fedora Core 2 was the firmware, which you had to extract from the Windows driver disk and copy into a particular place. The thing is that in my case, a Netgear WG511 card was more stable under FC2 Linux than Windows.
See my journal, I write things there
This includes, belgium, swiss, par of africa states ... ;-)
... (and japan a much more productive ground by the way). Just go and look at the yearly festival of Angouleme and you will get it.
;-) Better go and visit the land and then post your oppinion about your experience.
Anybody that like comics knows europe is much more "versatile" ground
So forget about French bashing guys for such nonsenses... If you know nothing about Europe or France then bashing will not help you to be smarter
On this era in which to have convictions is not "in" derading people with clear ideas about what they want is an international sport.
Well scored, you obviously can play the game.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
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