RE: [LUG] Cheap PCMCIA Wireless LAN

["Robin Cornelius" <robin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Robin Cornelius wrote:
>
> > Hi All,
> >
> > For all you laptop users, maplin electronics has some Binatone 
> WL1000 802.11b+ 
> > PCMCIA cards for £12.99. While these don't work "out of the box" 
> on linux 
> > (certanly not on mandrake anyway) a quick trip to 
> > http://www.houseofcraig.net/acx100_howto.php will get everything 
> working in 
> > 15 minutes or so. (Binaries provided for different distros as well). 
> >  
> What's the range like?  Does it have a connector for an external antenna?

No External antenna, but might be able to hack one in if you really needed it.

Not sure of the range at the moment, its too wet to go wandering up the road with my 
laptop!

> I wouldn't mind having a muck about with this, it's got to the price 
> point where even miserly people like myself can justify buying one on 
> novelty value alone :-) 

If you are connecting to a desktop unit and not a laptop or somebody elses wireless 
gateway then that will cost you a bit more. I got a nice 4 port switch + 802.11b 
wireless + ADSL wan port box for £34 on ebay, the best feature is its web based conf 
screen that even works perfectly with lynx and the like. 

What's linux auto-network-detection like at 
> present?  Not up to MacOS X standards, I presume?

MDK9.2 has a driver kernel module supplied so it should just be a case of plugiing 
and leting the hardware detection ask some questions and away you go. Other distros 
it just a case of following some simple instructions (link above). There are also 
all sorts of graphical/non graphical wireless config tools to play with. But i find 
the simple iwconfig command is FAR more powerful and convient than any graphical 
config tool on any OS.


Regards

robin

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