In talking with various tech support people, I've come to the conclusion that the Intel wifi chipset, notably 2915bg, works; there are reported problems with the atheros chipset. The ThinkPad Z series has the intel stuff, the ThinkPad T series has the atheros stuff. I'll probably buy the ThinkPad Z, although HP seems to have a better commitment to Linux at this point (Lenovo techies sound like Linux testing is coming their way, and they sound glad about it).
On May 26, 2006, at 6:54 AM, Phil Schaffner wrote:
On Thu, 2006-05-25 at 11:20 -0400, Max H. wrote:
Rodrigo Barbosa wrote:
Anything without an Atheros based Wifi. Mine is Intel IPW2200, and works nicely. Everyone I know with atheros based is having problems.
I have an IBM Thinkpad R40 with an Atheros based wifi chipset, running on CentOS 4.3 (it's been running on it since 4.0) without any problems. I have to load the driver set from a seperate RPM, though.
http://atrpms.net/dist/el4/madwifi/
Without loading the Madwifi drivers, however, I was never able to get CentOS to see my wireless. The only annoyance I have is every kernel update, I have to update the RPM. But if that's all it takes to have it working, I'm not going to complain.
Have been using CentOS on a Lenovo (Chinese outfit that bought out IBM PC business) ThinkPad T42p for some time (with a Netgear WG511T PCMCIA
no built-in WiFi in this model), and concur with the above except that madwifi seems to be incompatible with the proprietary Cisco VPN module I have to use to connect to work when out of the office. Wireless works until an attempt is made to start the VPN at which point the machine hangs hard - as in nothing works but holding down the power button for several seconds to power down. The open source VPN clients don't seem to be compatible with our server. Cisco module works fine on hard-wired Ethernet.
(Am going to be ordering another card to replace the Atheros-based one. Any recommendations appreciated.)
Next laptop I buy will likely have the Intel WiFi.
Phil
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