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State of WLAN Support on Linux?
ntropic asks: "I/ve recently bought a Belkin 802.11G USB adapter and was dismayed to find, after a few hours of struggling with it, that there seems to be no one who has managed to get it working under Linux. During the search for clues, it seemed that sum total of Linux support for wireless networking are the linux-wlan project, and the linuxant wrappers for Windows drivers. The former seems to support only Prism chipsets while the latter is a commercial solution, albeit quite an inexpensive one. Is that all, or are there better sources for wireless networking support?"
how many times do people have to be told how the driver issue works on linux (and other free/open operating systems)...
this is not a WLAN issue, neither a linux issue!
just an issue of closed consumer hardware (in your case WLAN) and 1 or 2 mainstream consumer operating systems (that are also closed).
personally i think this is a pretty lame slashdot cover story. it should, again IMO, have been in the 'Ask' section, or not posted at all.
so what do you do if you want hardware that works on linux:
(my 15 y.o. sister already knows the answer)
1. first read on the internet if it has linux drivers/ succes stories
2. if so: then buy
this is how it works, has worked, and will continue to work for at least upcoming few years. you either get used to this prcedure, or buy hardware that might not work.
note: some people buy unsopported hardware and reverse engeneer a driver for it. these people make a differnece to the freesoftware movement.
I commented on a crud bit of Linux behaviour (wifi card killed video star) - It was kinda on-topic...
You comment on how you use Linux seamlessly (and you are an *expert*). You mention about using Linux for a few years and then check back! You sad mofo! I've been programming Unix boxes for a living for the last five years so don't get all "houlier-than-thou" on me matey.
Think I'm tellin' lies? Look up IVR & Periphonics - they're the things I program and they're very much Unix. So don't give me no "use it for a couple of years" crap.
Du-uh!
I'm not going to say you're lying, because I'm sure you really have this problem. But the probability that you have something configured wrong is very close to 1.
Maybe not
Are you allowed to say that on Slashdot? I thought that suggesting installing a device under Linux was any harder than it is under Windows was heresy round here. I'd watch your back carefully - you might suddenly find yourself burning on a stake.
-- SIGFPE
"It's like all things linux. It works, but it takes time and energy to get it to that stage. He really should have researched before buying."
Before buyng which Linux or the Wi-Fi card? I would suggest not using Linux for the desktop. It's great for servers, but it's not user nice.
>If you're using a rpm based distro such as Fedora, you might look into setting
>up Livna as a repository for yum and then just get the appropriate ndiswrapper
>rpm from them. The folks at Livna do a really good job of publishing a
>recompiled ndiswrapper rpm whenever the kernel gets updated.
And people wonder why non technical users are put off Linux....