Hi,
I was just wondering why wireless networking is so hard to set up in linux. Wired networking seems to be really easy - most distros just install and networking works. Why doesn't this happen with wireless in linux?
Just curious! squelch41
You can thank that to the companies that make the equipment as they do NOT provide the necessary drivers for their equipment and Linux. If you are having problems, what equipment do you have (make and model) and what is it that you are exactly trying to do?
Wireless networking is not any more difficult in Linux than in other OS's. (OK, I don't do OSX, but I do Win and Linux.) In both OS's you need to activate the wireless card, and set it up. (Both with security and which network that it should connect to.) So, I have no idea why you say it is more difficult. Perhaps you are not using a new distro. I have set up wireless with the following disto's with Linksys, Dlink, Oinoco, and Belkin cards with no problem:
Xandros 4 Pro Ubuntu 6.06 and 6.10 Suse 10 Mandrake Knoppix
So, maybe you need to try one of the above.
snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com hath wroth:
Because if it were easy, it would be no fun.
It's not even that, it's that they won't release ANY of the specs. Linux hackers would write the drivers themselves if they could, but the manufacturers won't release any specs, and so the coders are relegated to trying to reverse engineer the hardware which is MUCH harder than just writing a driver.
Johann Beretta hath wroth:
Actually, reverse engineering is often *MORE* accurate than using the published specs. I've been ensnarled in at least 2 debates over whether to build wireless devices in accordance to the specs, or to built them to match the goofy hardware de jure which doesn't quite follow the specs. Lots of fun. It's interesting to note that the best drivers seem to be the ones that either include company support (Prism, Atheros), or the limited number of devices that have been revese engineered (Broadcom).
For what little I know about (which is not every chipset on the planet). I have clues on the others (Atmel, Intel, Prism, Marvell, RealTek, Zydas) but prefer to let the Linux experts doing the complaining. Nice article on the current open source wireless mess:
Well, maybe not so current. The ar5k Atheros driver is obselete under Linux.
Broadcom: Doesn't supply any info except under NDA. Does not support open source. Ships drivers in the form of binary APL's. However, it has been reverse engineered quite successfully:
OK - thanks. So it is basically the fact that the drivers are extremely difficult to find/make. That would certainly fit with my experience where, under windows, things are reasonably easy as you just install the manufacturer's driver, but for linux, you have to hunt around for chipset type, then try the driver which often doesnt work, etc.
Thanks again, squelch41
Jeff Liebermann wrote:
Well you could just try using NDISwrapper and the native windows driver.
The downside of that approach is that no kernel developer will even look at any oops that you have as long as that Windows binary "taints" your system.
Once you solve the driver problem, and I'm part of the group working on the bcm43xx driver, using NetworkManager to connect is even easier then Windows. When you try to connect with a new, encrypted AP, up pops a box asking for your encryption key, which is then stored in your KDE wallet.
Larry
Could you give me an update on where things are with the bug that causes it to crash on an AMD64 machine with a gigabyte or more of RAM? Kind of a hassle to drag out the old PC Card 802.11b adapter when I want to boot into Linux.
Fixed just last week. Patches for 2.6.18, 2.6.19, and 2.6.20-rcX are available at ftp://lwfinger.dynalias.org/patches. The fix should be in 2.6.20 before release.
If you don't want to patch your kernel, just add a 'mem=1024M' line to your boot options. That will restrict your memory to 1 GB, and the old code will work.
Larry
I did some window shopping, trying to find good support, and then intended to buy whatever was well supported.
I wound up going to Fry's Electronics and buying a card that I remembered seeing on one of the "good" lists.
Of course, there are versions... The card that I chose has the same model number, but multiple versions that are entirely different chipsets.
The DLink DWL-G630, hardware version C2, is supported for several versions of Linux, with both RPMs and source code available.
The DLink page says there is no driver available. Atheros.com doesn't list it for Linux, but MADwifi.org lists it as an Artheros chipset with support.
On a dual boot PC, the Windows XP driver autoloaded via my wired connection, and it works fine.
On Redhat Enterprise Linux AS 3, update 8, there was an RPM available for the latest patched kernel, but I didn't have that version, so I had to build my own, which didn't work, due to some code bug. I backed off to an earlier source release, and successfully built and used the driver.
Linux hv-rhel 2.4.21-47.EL #1 Wed Jul 5 20:46:55 EDT 2006 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux /var/log/messages: kernel: cs: cb_alloc(bus 1): vendor 0x168c, device 0x001a kernel: wifi0: Atheros 5212: mem=0x10800000, irq=9 ath_hal: 0.9.17.2 (AR5210, AR5211, AR5212, RF5111, RF5112, RF2413, RF5413) wlan: 0.8.4.2 (0.9.1) ath_rate_sample: 1.2 (0.9.1) ath_pci: 0.9.4.5 (0.9.1)
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