[ILUG] Slightly OT - Linux PPC CD's or DVD's

[Michael Conry]

On Wed, 20 Oct 2004 08:26:32 -0700, Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com> wrote:
> I'd heard that prism54 variants are the only modern (802.11g-capable)
> wireless cards for which there are completely open-source drivers.
I think that's right.  And the only other functional 802.11g
alternative I'm aware of are the atheros based cards using the madwifi
driver that Martin mentioned.  Although the madwifi driver taints your
kernel by loading a binary component, it does give you pretty full
access to the utility of the card (e.g. to use a linux-box as a
wireless base-station, or in monitor mode).

Outside of these two chipsets (and even with these chipsets, if you
like), you can use the Windows drivers via the ndiswrapper project,
but last time I looked you did not get full access to the card's
capabilities, plus you are perhaps in some small way supporting the
absence of Linux drivers.

What I found difficult was the problem of working out what chipset was
in a card before I bought it.  The manufacturers change them very,
very frequently.  In the end I got lucky and tracked down a low-priced
PCI e-tech card from Marx Computers that turned out to have atheros
components (last in stock), and then found the atheros based pcmcia
d-link DWLG650 in Compustore.  I'd have preferred to buy prism based
cards, but couldn't find any such PCI cards (marx, peats, komplett).

m