Re: My Laptop

["Stuart D. Gathman" <stuart gathman org>]

On Tue, 11 Dec 2007, Herbert Taylor wrote:

> I wanted to see if I could get some advise on what to do concerning
> wireless on my laptop.  I have a Dell Inspiron B130 with a Dell wireless
> card, 1370 WLAN, mini-PC card.  It works fine on windows as does a
> Linksys WUSB54G.
>
> I have Ubuntu loaded right now in a dual boot, that one of my geek
> friends worked on and am not sure if it will ever work right again.  I
> have been unable to get get any drivers that will load or work with
> Ubuntu and network manager at all.  I was using Fedora 6, but had
> problems with that.  I am fairly new to Linux as you can guess.

Unless you have a documented or fully reverse engineered internal
wireless, you are better off ignoring it.  I recommend getting
a USB wireless key.  These are mostly better documented.  Plus, with
an inexpensive USB extension cable (as opposed to expensive coax needed
for antennas), you can place the USB key for
optimal reception - including at the focus of a parabolic dish
(which can be as improvised as a vegetable steamer).
Furthermore, you can move your USB wireless between laptops or even
servers - it is system hardware independent.

My favorite USB is Hawking HWU54G, which uses the Zydas chipset.  It looks
like a USB thumb drive.

You can find a list of linux wireless device support at

http://linux-wless.passys.nl/query_hostif.php?hostif=USB

(and elsewhere also, I'm sure).

> Daniel Fetchinson (I believe) wrote that he installed Fedora 8 and
> network manager was working just fine and he connected to his wireless
> network.  I was thinking seriously of going back to Fedora but unable to
> find a way to get a copy were we are staying for the winter in Florida.

Networkmanager 0.6 had problems with WPA.  FC8 has NM 0.7, which is working
fine on my new Compaq C500US laptop with WPA and my trusty Hawking 
HWU54G USB wireless.

> Not sure if my Dell (Broadcom card I believe) will work the same way
> with Fedora 8. Wish I knew more about this stuff.  Linux out performs
> Windows in all ways, but right now I am stuck using windows while I am
> down down here for 5 months. Any suggestions on what I might be able to
> do would be greatly appreciated. If I could get this thing to work I
> could drop windows completely.

Broadcom wireless is only partially reverse engineered.  I tried the
b43 driver in FC8 on the BCM94311MCG in my new laptop.  It worked, with
WPA even, but I got kernel exceptions, DMA exception, and eventually the system
froze.  I would say it is not ready for prime time.  (I will be looking for
where to helpfully report the exceptions for those trying to debug
the thing.  I suspect donations of relevant hardware are most useful.)
No problems with the zd1211 driver and USB key.

--
	      Stuart D. Gathman <stuart bmsi com>
Business Management Systems Inc.  Phone: 703 591-0911 Fax: 703 591-6154
"Confutatis maledictis, flamis acribus addictis" - background song for
a Microsoft sponsored "Where do you want to go from here?" commercial.