[CentOS] Which external WiFi device for laptop running CentOS5.3?
Robert Moskowitz
rgm at htt-consult.com
Fri Jun 19 21:06:30 UTC 2009
Julian Thomas wrote:
> On Fri, 19 Jun 2009 14:31:33 -0400 fred smith wrote:
>
>>
>>> David McGuffey wrote:
>>>
>>>> Have decided to give up on the embedded Broadcom 4312 wireless device in
>>>> my son's Dell laptop. I get WEP open authentication to work, but
>>>> nothing else. I was about to dump the bcm43xx kernel module and the
>>>> bcm43xx-microcode5.fw firmware and work with the newer b43 module and
>>>> associated firmware. However, he claims that at school, he has always
>>>> had intermittent problems with wireless under Vista and wants an
>>>> external device (USB or PCMCIA).
>>>>
>
> Why not look at a small access point that plugs into the RJ45 and uses USB for power? DLink DWL-G730AP or
> other equivalent.
If it really is an AP, it won't do the job, as an AP cannot be a client
to another AP. 802.11 DOES have the concept of a wireless backbone,
called WDS (wireless distribution system), but it is not yet defined
(Work In Progress: 802.11s, I am a contributor to the security
features). So each vendor has its own WDS implementation (MIT's OnePC
implements part of draft 1 of 802.11s).
Of course there are devices out there that are referred to as wireless
bridges (Linksys WRT54g is one) that act as a client and bridges an
ethernet as a single client to the AP. Note that a wireless bridge is
NOT an AP. Of course there are probably devices out there that can be
configured either way....
Note, I work on the 802.11 standards and know them well, but I don't
know of all the flavors of implementations out in the wild.
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