Networking... without wires!
Most commonly provided by 802.11b, which uses the 2.4GHz microwave band, designated for low-power unlicensed use by the FCC in the USA in 1985 (Reserved because 2.4GHz is the resonant frequency of water, and that's how a microwave oven works - 2.4GHz waves break bonds in water!).
802.11b networking normally requires some PCMCIA cards and a BaseStation (else you can just use AdHoc peer-to-peer mode), and provides about 11mbit networking. Someone else flesh this one please.
CRCnet is a project that is setting up wireless networking between WaikatoUniversity and some remote schools. It is run by the WandGroup. They gave a presentation to WLUG about Wireless Networking - see MeetingTopics.2003-06-23.
Security is an issue with Wireless Networks that is often ignored. See WirelessNetworkSecurityNotes.
PhilMurray went to PBTech and bought two Nokia C110 wireless cards and a Nokia C910 wireless bridge (PCI to PCMCIA bridge) for $500 (A good deal). This is where the problem begins.
The C110 card works fine in Windows, as you'd expect. There's even a binary Linux driver. We have a wireless network connecting two laptops, one of which is kept plugged into a network cable so that the other laptop can have wireless. :)
HOWEVER, the C910 (PCI adapter card) seems to come in two flavours - a Cirrus Logic chipset (which provides an i82365 PCMCIA bridge, which is exactly what the driver wants), and a PLX PCI9052 chipset, which isn't a 'bridge' at al - it maps the PCMCIA registers into the PCI range. You need different drivers for this - the Prism2 chipset (which the C110 is tantalisingly similar to, but not quite the same as) is well supported with Linux-WLAN-NG. But not the C110! It has a BinaryDriver, so we can't even get 
PerryLorier to hax it.
Be warned, the Belkin F5D6000Z (the only bridge Ascent sell) is a PLX PCI9052 as well.
The moral of this story? Even if you go to buy a piece of hardware that you are told is LinuxCompatible, check the chipset! It might end up not being so.
UPDATE: The Nokia cradle used with an Orinocco Silver card works perfectly in FreeBSD, I never did get it working in Linux.
There are some terms being used here that might be confusing. "Cradle", "Bridge" in the above section refers to a PCI to PCMCIA bridge, or ISA to PCMCIA bridge. That is, it is a PCI or ISA card that fits into your computer, that has a PCMCIA slot on it. So where you see 'Nokia C910 wireless bridge' above, its referring to this.
The other sort of "Wireless Bridge" you might see is just that - a device that takes wireless in one end and puts ethernet out the other. The Linksys WET11 is an example of this, I believe.
I have been getting more and more sick of cables being dragged around when i use my laptop .. especially from bed. So i ordered a pcmcia card (also so i can use public access points when im in australia to upload photos to my gallery) from ascent.. i settled on a belkin pcmcia card that seemed nice and cheap and seemed to have many people say was a good value for money card from reviews on the net.
Im still waiting for this card to arrive, however i will only be using this under windows so probably not suitable for the wiki..
i have been looking for a cheap AP with good reviews.. but basically gave up.. there are many out there.. but $220 for a budget version... so i thought why not run in adhoc mode for a while.. i bought a belkin usb wireless adapter that according to the net is linux compatible (and about half the price of an AP) i thought getting a usb device to work under linux was going to be a mission.. it was a lot easier than i thought it could have been. (although i havent yet tested the wireless is actually working) it gives me all the results id expect. The belkin wireless usb adapter i bought was a Belkin F5D6050 (Atmel AT76C503A based wireless usb device).
i installed the drivers from 
http://atmelwlandriver.sourceforge.net/downloads.html
as following instructions on http://www.rjmb.net/wireless/belkin-howto.htm
it all just worked.. it was easy to setup and once i actually get my other wireless card ill be able to test it actually works and finish this off and say it actually definately works.
I am very impressed with the drivers though.. they worked really well, and the configuration program lvnet is really easy to use.
now the question is.. will i be able to simply plug my wireless card into the laptop.. and get assigned a dhcp address (after adding the appropriate entries to dhcpd.conf) and it will all work... lets wait and see.
UPDATE - It really was that simple. ive been using the setup for a few months now.. and it works well. ive had minimal problems.. in fact currently im having more problems on my wired lan than on the wireless.
No other page links to WirelessNetworking yet.
