NetBSD i386 wireless - what's needed?

Generally speaking, FreeBSD, OpenBSD and Linux have great support for

802.11. There are drivers which are actively supported as Kernel modules and in case of FreeBSD there is Kernel support itself. You might port any of these drivers to NetBSD, i.e. if somebody hasn't already done it.

This question is probly best addressed on NetBSD groups.

FWITW - the drivers are:

# hostap # madwifi

One issue you'd face is the hardware you'd put on the NetBSD box. Do you have provision for incorporating a PCMCIA card or miniPCI. You should buy hardware (pay attention to chip-set) which is supported by those drivers.

The other approach you can take is to setup a wireless bridge that basically builds the wifi link and transfers traffic to the NetBSD box. This is probably a more secure option also, as you can secure the wireless link w. VPN or atleast a firewall.

For the 802.11 bridge approach, consider using:

as

to

For an ultra-light antenna, weather tollerant, high-gain parabolic, there's a good solution:

HTH

as

Thanks for the other info you offered, but it's rather crass of you to munge the URL of a competitotr's product as you did while hyping your own. It detracts from the value of your offering to munge others.

Re: confero24.com/wlan-antenna :

Also, your directional antenna costs twice as much and has 12.5% less gain as well. Thanks for indicating a model to avoid.

For clarification, the premium in price is for the ABS construction, which puts the weight of the whole antenna + mounting kit at about 3 Lbs, instead of the 8.2Lbs of the other product.. Just costs more to make durable ABS grid, compared to Alu/steel etc.

Lighter weight also amounts to low-wind resistance - probably something to consider for long-life installations.

It seems like you want to do your SOM or link calculations first before choosing an antenna or a radio. :

As someone once said, pointing a 24dbi antenna is not so easy and whether it's a good choice also depends on where it will be mounted and who else is in the path where it's pointed, as it will focus interfering signals as well. High gain has it's cost like everything.

Using an outboard wireless ethernet bridge as suggested, seems ideal. I don't know if you need a $400 commercial device or not. Can't see how it matters whether it's firmware is linux-based or not, as you are connecting it with ethernet to your LAN.

And if Linux on your outboard devices were important, then there are plenty SOHOs that do that.

For a SOHO device, this is good:

Or this: with DD-WRT firmware installed will act as a bridge as well. Advantage is that it takes replacment firmware to make it more flexible for future use. Good investment.

Install the bridge near the antenna on a short coax (low-loss). Then run ethernet cable for your LAN from there in order to avoid coax loss.

Steve