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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.
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.
Take a look at the LQ HCL: http://www.linuxquestions.org/hcl/index.php
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 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.
I feel your pain. The problem you will run into is that even if you get a D-Link, Linksys, or Netgear, some of them may use the same chipset. I tried the D-Link first because it was cheap. It used the Prism2 chipset. But after reading every bit of documentation, and trying it as both a module and in the kernel under about 10 configuations I gave up. It seems like getting these cards to work is hit or miss for a lot of people based on all the posts I read. And believe me I read a bunch.
Then I tried a Linksys that I use on my work XP laptop. No dice there. I forget the chipset on that one, but I had the Linksys WPC11 v4 which apparently has little or no support on Linux.
So finally I decided to just bite the bullet and get a Cisco Aironet 350. If you buy these new, they are over $100. But if you go to Ebay, you can get one for around $50. All you do is compile the support in the kernel and it works like a champ. I have set it up successfully on both Debian and Gentoo.
So Cisco is the easy way to go if you can get a good deal. I would avoid the Linksys card I tried, but apparently versions prior to v4 work better. You can give the D-Link or Netgear a shot with the Prism2 chipset, but you may have to work at it a while to get it working.
Hope that helps.
As far as headaches, I think you'll find more headaches in the peripheral support infrastructure than in the wireless hardware and drivers. If you are going to use PCMCIA/PC Card wireless adapters I think you'll discover the Linux PCMCIA drivers have a habit of panicking. With any hardware you'll need to do a lot of manual configuration hacking before your computer will perform useful functions like automatically roaming to available SSIDs (something windows and mac os do automatically). You'll be installing packages and editing /etc files for the next month, but eventually you'll have something that works 62% of the time.
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
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..."
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.
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.