Penguin
Recent Changes
Blame: WirelessChipsets
EditPageHistoryDiffInfoLikePages
Annotated edit history of WirelessChipsets version 18, including all changes. View license author blame.
Rev Author # Line
6 GreigMcGill 1 Although there are many different wireless cards made by many different vendors available for purchase today, there are only a small number of companies that make wireless chipsets. For example almost all 802.11b cards in existence today have either an Intersil Prism or Agere Hermes chipset in them. Chipsets are important because usually wireless drivers work with Chipsets rather than individual cards. Finding out whether your chipset is supported in Linux is the first step in getting your wireless card working.
2
17 JohnMcPherson 3 !!! Lists of Card Chipsets supported by Linux
6 GreigMcGill 4 You may be able to find out what chipset your card contains by looking at one of the following lists.
5
6 http://www.linux-wlan.org/docs/wlan_adapters.html.gz
7
8 !! 802.11b Chipsets
9 * PrismWirelessChipset by Intersil
10 * HermesWirelessChipset by Agere
15 CraigBox 11 * [RT2x00WirelessChipset] (2400) by RaLink
17 JohnMcPherson 12 * Intel [IPW2100|IPW2x00WirelessChipset]
6 GreigMcGill 13
14 !! 802.11g Chipsets (Often these support both b and g)
15 * [PrismGTWirelessChipset] by Intersil
15 CraigBox 16 * [RT2x00WirelessChipset] (2500) by RaLink
17 JohnMcPherson 17 * Intel [IPW2200|IPW2x00WirelessChipset]
16 DanielLawson 18 * AtherosWirelessChipset
18 IanMcDonald 19 * BroadcomWirelessChipset
6 GreigMcGill 20
21 !! 802.11a Chipsets (Often these support a, b and g)
22 Please fill in here
11 IanMcDonald 23
24 !! Unsupported cards
18 IanMcDonald 25 There are a number of cards which are not supported directly. The most notable of these was the Broadcom chip series but this is now improving. These however can, in many cases, be supported by using [Windows] drivers with a project called NdisWrapper.
6 GreigMcGill 26
27 !! Which Chipset should I use?
28 An excellent question, it depends on what you want to do.
29
17 JohnMcPherson 30 The best cards for general 802.11b use are the Proxim Gold cards which contain a HermesWirelessChipset, these are well supported by Linux via a number of drivers. They will work in both AdHoc and Managed modes but they cannot do HostAP.
6 GreigMcGill 31
17 JohnMcPherson 32 If you want a card that can do HostAP (act as an AccessPoint), then you need to buy a card with a PrismWirelessChipset.
6 GreigMcGill 33
17 JohnMcPherson 34 DickSmith's sell a CardBus 802.11g wireless card (product number XH8225) that uses an AtherosWirelessChipset (AR5212).
6 GreigMcGill 35
17 JohnMcPherson 36 !! Linux Kernel Support
6 GreigMcGill 37
17 JohnMcPherson 38 As well as the module for your chipset, make sure that your kernel has support for loading wireless modules.
39 The default kernel of any recent distro will almost certainly already have this, but if you compile your own kernel, make sure you have the following support. This from LinuxKernel 2.6.9, but should be similar for similarly-versioned kernels.
6 GreigMcGill 40
17 JohnMcPherson 41 You need support (modules or built-in) for the following:
6 GreigMcGill 42 * CONFIG_NET_RADIO (Device Drivers -> Networking Support -> Wireless LAN)
10 JohnMcPherson 43 * CONFIG_CRYPTO (Cryptographic options -> Cryptographic API)
6 GreigMcGill 44
17 JohnMcPherson 45 Some drivers also require additional support for some of the crypto algorithms. You probably want at least CONFIG_CRYPTO_AES and CONFIG_CRYPTO_MICHAEL_MIC if you intend to use [WPA] encryption, although some drivers implement this themselves.
6 GreigMcGill 46
47 ----
48 Part of CategoryWireless

PHP Warning

lib/blame.php:177: Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach()