WLAN support

Kevin Oberman oberman at es.net
Fri May 30 12:04:57 PDT 2003


> From: "Volker" <volker at vwsoft.com>
> Date: Fri, 30 May 2003 13:29:34 +0200
> Sender: owner-freebsd-stable at freebsd.org
> 
> Hi folks!
> 
> First post here, so please don't bother if it's not the right place 
> to post those kind of questions.
> 
> I'm currently running a 4.7-release (upgrade to 4.8 planned but not 
> yet started) on my production box.
> 
> As I would like to setup a small WLAN (major use for my notebook, 
> other clients are possible) I need to know which cards are really 
> supported. The handbook is IMHO not clear about that (the chipsets 
> are documented but how do I know which card is using what chipset 
> as the manufacturers doesn't really name the chipset?).

You just hit the nail on the head.Several manufacturers have changed
chips with no change in packaging. D-Link does have a web page telling
you how to figure out which chip your card has for firmware update
reasons, but that does not help when you are buying one. To far too
great an extent, it's a matter of trying it and seeing f it is
recognized. (Yes, this sucks, but I don't know what we can do about it.)

> I've got a list of possible WLAN NICs and am wondering if somebody 
> has any experience using one of them with FreeBSD 4.x?
> 
> Netgear WG511 (Cardbus) or WAG511 (Cardbus, 5 + 2.4 GHz)
> SMC 2802W (PCI) or 2835W (Cardbus)
> D-Link DWL G520 (PCI) or DWL G650 (Cardbus)
> Belkin 802.11g/+ (don't have a product name by hand, PN PCI: 
> F5D7000, PN Cardbus: F5D7010 - not yet on market)
> 
> All of these cards are 802.11g devices (54 MBit/s).
> 
> What about support on FreeBSD for these devices? Any experience?

Eliminate any 802.11g cards Any card that supports this is not going to
work. The reason is legal. Those cards may be programmed to operate
an any of a wide range of frequencies and powers and any release of the
register definitions could result in transmissions on frequencies not
allowed in that location. This could result in large penalties to the
manufacturer, so they will only release the specs under an NDA that is
totally incompatible with open source. In the industry there has been
talk of cryptographic techniques for setting such things, but there are
not current or near future products that will support this.

I read a good article on this about a month ago, but I don't remember
where. I think I got the pointer on /.

> I would like to setup one FreeBSD box (4.7 / 4.8 or even 5.0/5.1) 
> as a router and have at least one notebook connected wireless 
> (running both Win2k and FreeBSD).
> 
> As I was reading that the high speed wireless devices are having a 
> better operating range compared to 802.11b devices, I don't want to 
> install 802.11b devices.

Sorry. Maybe some day, but not any time soon.

R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer
Energy Sciences Network (ESnet)
Ernest O. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab)
E-mail: oberman at es.net			Phone: +1 510 486-8634


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