Desktop wireless card for linux

[CheesePoofs]

Hi,

Does anyone know of any pci wireless g cards that will work out of the box with linux? Or any linux distributions that have built in support for desktop wireless cards?

Thanks

 

[Nothinman]

Doubtful, only recently did Theo get some of the hardware manufacturers to start allowing redistribution of their non-free firmware. If the Intel Centrino stuff comes in cards you can buy seperately that's a good choice, AFAIK the ipw2100 series is fully supported but ipw2200 is not yet there. Atheros cards supposedly work with the drivers on sourceforge, but I haven't tried them.

You'll probably be able to get anything that's not Broadcom based to work, but I doubt you'll find a G card that works with no work on your part.

 

[user1234]

There are some, but it's hard to give a general catorization as sometime the same model card from the same manufacturer would have different revisions, each one using different chipsets. I agree that the Intel Pro Wireless chips are fully supported and in fact they usually work out of the box. Most problems are with cards which have dynamically loaded firmware, but again this is not something that is usually printed on the box. I had bad experience with D-Link cards, but only good experiences with Intel pro wireless.

 

[WobbleWobble]

ipw2200 (Intel's G wireless chipset) is still missing some notable features such as stable WPA support and monitor mode.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: user1234
There are some, but it's hard to give a general catorization as sometime the same model card from the same manufacturer would have different revisions, each one using different chipsets. I agree that the Intel Pro Wireless chips are fully supported and in fact they usually work out of the box. Most problems are with cards which have dynamically loaded firmware, but again this is not something that is usually printed on the box. I had bad experience with D-Link cards, but only good experiences with Intel pro wireless.

IIRC Mandrake and SuSE sold their souls and include the tainted firmware.

OpenBSD has the best wireless support so far. Intel takes a bit of work (downloading a firmware), but plenty of others are supported. Especially European companies. :clock:

 

[WobbleWobble]

With the 5.04 release of Ubuntu, my ipw2200 was detected and working out of the box. Minus the notable features in my post above.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: WobbleWobble
With the 5.04 release of Ubuntu, my ipw2200 was detected and working out of the box. Minus the notable features in my post above.

What's monitor mode?

EDIT: It looks like the wireless version of promisc, but less useful. Not a big deal, and WPA isn't worth worrying about yet, IMO.

 

[user1234]

Originally posted by: WobbleWobble
With the 5.04 release of Ubuntu, my ipw2200 was detected and working out of the box. Minus the notable features in my post above.

me too (IPW 802.11b on my thinkpad detected by Ubuntu 5.4). And a friend had his IPW 802.11g (on dell 600m) working out of the box with Ubuntu 4.10.

 

[Nothinman]

EDIT: It looks like the wireless version of promisc, but less useful. Not a big deal, and WPA isn't worth worrying about yet, IMO.

Monitor mode is necessary for things like kismet to work and WPA is necessary if you want something more secure than WEP.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

EDIT: It looks like the wireless version of promisc, but less useful. Not a big deal, and WPA isn't worth worrying about yet, IMO.

Monitor mode is necessary for things like kismet to work and WPA is necessary if you want something more secure than WEP.

IPSEC doesn't require WPA.

 

[Nothinman]

IPSEC is also a lot more work to setup and works easily with a lot less devices.

 

[CheesePoofs]

I'm not too familiar with Linux; I've never been able to get the internet going on it because of my wireless card, so I've never used it as my main OS. I don't mind doing some work to set up the card, but I don't know how to do much.

Since there don't seem to be any 802.11g cards that work out of the box with linux, anyone know of some that are easy to set up? Instructions would also be very helpful.

Thanks

 

[WobbleWobble]

Intel's 2200BG wireless DOES work out of the box with Ubuntu. The only think you would be missing that you probably would care about is WPA support. WEP is fully supported though.

If you are able to get something like apt-get and Synaptic (GUI front end for apt) working, then it should be a breeze setting up most wireless cards since apt-get will go get all the dependencies and edit the configurations for you.

 

[WobbleWobble]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: WobbleWobble
With the 5.04 release of Ubuntu, my ipw2200 was detected and working out of the box. Minus the notable features in my post above.

What's monitor mode?

EDIT: It looks like the wireless version of promisc, but less useful. Not a big deal, and WPA isn't worth worrying about yet, IMO.

With monitor mode support, you can use something like Airsnort and easily crack the WEP key. Hence the need for WPA.

But I believe Airsnort needs quite a bit of data to crack the WEP key while Kismet can do it with much less.

 

[CheesePoofs]

Originally posted by: WobbleWobble
Intel's 2200BG wireless DOES work out of the box with Ubuntu. The only think you would be missing that you probably would care about is WPA support. WEP is fully supported though.

If you are able to get something like apt-get and Synaptic (GUI front end for apt) working, then it should be a breeze setting up most wireless cards since apt-get will go get all the dependencies and edit the configurations for you.

Isn't that a notebook card? I need one for my desktop computer.

I live out in the middle of nowhere, so I don't need WPA or WEP, we just run a completely open network.

 

[drag]

Intel has a PCI version of it's 'centrino' wireless stuff, too. But I think that's it.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
IPSEC is also a lot more work to setup and works easily with a lot less devices.

IPSEC isn't NIC dependant...

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: WobbleWobble

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: WobbleWobble
With the 5.04 release of Ubuntu, my ipw2200 was detected and working out of the box. Minus the notable features in my post above.

What's monitor mode?

EDIT: It looks like the wireless version of promisc, but less useful. Not a big deal, and WPA isn't worth worrying about yet, IMO.

With monitor mode support, you can use something like Airsnort and easily crack the WEP key. Hence the need for WPA.

But I believe Airsnort needs quite a bit of data to crack the WEP key while Kismet can do it with much less.

And how secure is WPA?

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: WobbleWobble
Intel's 2200BG wireless DOES work out of the box with Ubuntu. The only think you would be missing that you probably would care about is WPA support. WEP is fully supported though.

If you are able to get something like apt-get and Synaptic (GUI front end for apt) working, then it should be a breeze setting up most wireless cards since apt-get will go get all the dependencies and edit the configurations for you.

How did Ubuntu get around the firmware license issue?

 

[Nothinman]

IPSEC isn't NIC dependant...

By devices I meant wireless print servers and crap.

How did Ubuntu get around the firmware license issue?

It's possible the installation script downloads the firmware when you install it, Debian's done that with other non-free things before. But that's just a guess, I haven't actually looked at the package.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

IPSEC isn't NIC dependant...

By devices I meant wireless print servers and crap.

I knew what you meant, I just like being difficult.

How did Ubuntu get around the firmware license issue?

It's possible the installation script downloads the firmware when you install it, Debian's done that with other non-free things before. But that's just a guess, I haven't actually looked at the package.

There's a click-through license that would violate.

 

[Nothinman]

There's a click-through license that would violate.

They're in Africa, maybe they don't care.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

There's a click-through license that would violate.

They're in Africa, maybe they don't care.

Every American user should.

 

[CheesePoofs]

Originally posted by: drag
Intel has a PCI version of it's 'centrino' wireless stuff, too. But I think that's it.

I couldn't find that anywhere, even on Intel's site. Can you get a link?