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802.11 for Linux Non-Geeks?
smanuel asks: "I'm in the process of helping my
non-geek friend get his Linux box set up with a PCI wireless card.
2006 is fast approaching and Linux *still* has spotty support
for 802.11a/b/g PCI and PCMCIA cards. Ask the The
Oracle about wireless for Linux and the results aren't much
better. There are a ton of cards to choose from but support is either
spotty or requires such contortions that I'm wary of spending the
time. What PCI/PCMCIA cards do fellow Slashdot readers recommend? I'm
looking for both PCI and PCMCIA cards; preferably ones with native
support in Linux (I'm trying to avoid ndis{c,w}rapper if I can). Is
the fact that card manufacturers change chipsets more often than they
underpants make this a never ending problem?"
Bull. The Ralink chipset has nice Linux drivers (the old ones were derived from the same source base as the Windows drivers, but the rewrite is so much better - and well supported), as well as any Atheros card. Prism cards are well-supported, and rtl8180 cards will work (when you figure out what order you do crap in. :) )
:)
Centrino you mentioned already has excellent Linux support.
The ACX1xx, as well as a few other obscure chipsets, have Linux support, but it's spotty.
The moral is, there are chipsets with good support, even though there are also some with really bad support.
It's only an insult if it's not true.
The best Hardware Compatability List for Linux that I've seen is here:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/hcl/index.php
It could be better (it HAS to get better) but I did get some useful modem purchasing info from it.
You are wise to inquire about Linux compatability before buying components for your 'industry standard x86 platform'.
How do they think a developer of free wifi would feel if they were reading this public display of bleating and humiliation? Such a developer would by definition have spent years of their lives devoting tons of free time to a labor of love and of liberty. If it was me, I'd be pretty insulted if not humiliated. Hopefully they'd have thick skin and say "yeah I know I don't like it either" or even just "whatever; you're welcome to fix it" but they're under no obligation to sympathize any further. Free device driver developers, especially those in wifi, are some hard working, state-of-the-art people who are substantially increasing our liberties. If you're not part of their solution, you're part of the problem.
I'm amazed you haven't come across the linux wlan chipset list. Although it hasn't been updated for nearly two years it's about the most exhaustive list of what is in each card that I've seen. If 802.11b is fine then there are still Prism 2.5/3 based cards out there that work very well. I also recently tested a Atheros based PCMCIA card (I'm purposely not naming manufacturers) which also worked well but required a small binary lump.
As mentioned elsewhere, support for wifi isn't spotty - it's support for certain chipsets that is (alas this is also extends to various USB wifi devices too). If you buy (for example) a Broadcom based card I'm afraid you're in for a rough ride because Broadcom don't want to release open source drivers. There's no point getting upset - Broadcom are within their rights to do so and Linux isn't binary only friendly. It's the way things are.
The best advice I can give is get a peek inside the box so you know which chipset you are buying. Manufacturers are lazy and try to avoid changing model numbers significantly even if they swap chipsets because it means all the other materials can stay exactly the same. If you are going on someone else's information be extremly weary of ANY deviation to the model name/number/revison. Things like a +, extra letters or revision increase of any amount can mean chipset changes.