HostAP is a kernel module that works with wireless network cards based on the Intersil Prism chipset.
Version 1 cards are not supported, but the vast bulk of cards are prism 2, 2.5 or 3. This kernel module is for Linux, and replaces orinoco_cs and hermes. It allows your linux box to act as an access point, and offloads a lot of the framing work to the NIC's firmware, rather than doing it all in software.
Howto
http://www.goonda.org/wireless/prism2/
Info on Driver
http://hostap.epitest.fi/
Debian's hostap-utils package
http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/hostap-utils.html
Short list of Prism cards
http://www.personaltelco.net/index.cgi/Prism2Card
Massively long list of wireless cards and their Linux support
http://www.linux-wlan.org/docs/wlan_adapters.html4.html
This is the script Criggie? uses to start HostAP
------------start----------
killall -9 hostapd
ifconfig wlan0 down
ifconfig wlan0ap down
rmmod hostap_cs
rmmod hostap
rmmod hostap_crypt_wep
rmmod hostap_crypt
modprobe hostap_cs
modprobe hostap_crypt_wep
ifconfig wlan0 192.168.99.1 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.99.255
iwconfig wlan0 nick nicknameforaccesspoint key s:yourwepkeyhere
hostapd /etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf &
-----------end-----------
One page links to HostAP:
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