bit-tech News: Working with Wireless in Linux

[news 28]

Hi all,

 

We have just published a guide to using Wireless Networking in Linux

titled '*Working with Wireless in Linux*' - if you could post a link on

your site that would be very much appreciated.

 

*Link:*

http://www.bit-tech.net/bits/2008/04/25/working-with-wireless-in-linux/1

 

 

*Picture:*

http://images.bit-tech.net/content_images/2008/04/working-with-wireless-in-linux/fp_img.jpg

 

 

*Quote:

*/"However, many people will immediately say that Linux is simply not

ready for the masses -- and I agree with them. What bugs me is that when

asked why, I'm hearing complaints from ages past treated as present-day

problems: "I don't want to have to work in a command line,"/ and /"It's

so hard to configure," are just a couple of examples.

 

It's true that some things still aren't utterly plug-and-pray, but a lot

of things really //are nowadays. Unfortunately, one thing has continued

to stay on the fringes of penguin compatibility no matter how pervasive

it's become in day-to-day life: Wireless networking.

 

Windows and OSX have such simple ways of dealing with wireless, but for

many very good corporate reasons, open-source alternatives have not seen

such love. The problem stems from drivers, which (for open source

operating systems especially) divulge a //lot of secrets for how the

hardware operates. Talk about giving away the golden egg -- how would

you like to broadcast every little thing that makes you special to your

competitors worldwide?!

 

Unfortunately, because of the very tight control wars over drivers in

general, Linux has lagged in the wireless world. We've largely been

forced to go hunt for revision numbers and version SKUs on packaging,

scrolling through ten boxes of four brands of card to find which one

features a chipset that bothered to develop proper Linux drivers (for

the record, that's mostly Ralink and Atheros, which you can find in

various card versions of several major brands including Linksys, Netgear

and D-Link). Once our prize was found, we'd run home and fire it to

gleefully enjoy...

 

...the same wireless that any Windows user had in about five minutes.

Or, worse yet, maybe we got the revision number wrong or it wasn't

clearly marked, and the chipset didn't work."

/ *

 

*Cheers guys!

 

Tim Smalley

www.bit-tech.net