[aklug] Re: 802.11g with WPA

Couple of points re: wireless.

Wireless is one of the two areas where the linux/unices fall down very badly. Not the
fault of the linux developers; this one can squarely be laid at the vendors' doorsteps
with their absolute to release the pertinent specs. In fact the developers have done
marvelous work trying to reverse engineer stuff, nonetheless wireless is still a massive
problem.

WPA is usually implemented using on-chip functionality, so it's chip dependent. Old
chips don't have it, and can't use it. wpa_supplicant probably won't have the proper
calls for newer or less common chipsets.

Many vendors will change designs and chipsets without notice, and without changing the
model number (or even rev number) of the device. Belkin, Dlink and Netgear are
especially bad about this. Good luck with this. Google is your friend.

20% of what you'll read in google is crap. 70% is obsolete.

Best luck (and it is luck) seems to be with atheros chipsets (they use the mad_wifi
drivers). I've also had fair luck with the zd1211 chipset based stuff. Poor luck with
ralink. Don't know about the onboard intel stuff in laptops.

wpa_supplicant does not always stay current with the latest chipset drivers, and that
can be extremely painful.

Be prepared for long frustrating worksessions.

Once you find a combo that works -DON'T CHANGE IT! until you absolutely positively
will-not-boot-otherwise have to.

On the other hand, it may change anyway.

How's your support contract with Madame Zora?

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Received on Mon Jan 28 16:28:41 2008