Very Computer

by **Jim** » Fri, 14 Jul 2000 04:00:00

I have a laptop (Thinkpad) running Redhat 6.2 and a desktop running
Redhat 6.2 and another desktop running Win98. (Gotta play Diablo2
somehow.....LOL) I have them all linked to the same ethernet hub and share
files and all FTP. BUT I want to use my laptop throughout my house.
Sitting outside, ba*t, living room etc. So I wanted to see about
getting a wireless ethernet card for my laptop.
Has anyone tried or is using a wireless ethernet card on a linux box? I
assume there is a PCMCIA card for the laptop, which will hopefully mimic a
standard driver in Linuxconf or with a bit of tweaking, but how does it
connect to the network. Ideally, I hope there is a "reciever" of the
encrypted data (sent from the PCMCIA card) that can simply be plugged into
my ethernet hub and they can all happily communicate. However my search of
the net seems to show me I need to plug in the reciver card into one of my
desktops and then configure it for using 2 network cards. There has to be
an easier way......
My basic question is this, is there such an animal as a simple wireless
network that will work with Linux, is it going to cost me an arm and a leg,
and am I going to have to re-configure my whole network to accomodate it.
Thank you for any help you can give.

Jim

by **David Efflan** » Sat, 15 Jul 2000 04:00:00

> I have a laptop (Thinkpad) running Redhat 6.2 and a desktop running
>Redhat 6.2 and another desktop running Win98. (Gotta play Diablo2
>somehow.....LOL) I have them all linked to the same ethernet hub and share
>files and all FTP. BUT I want to use my laptop throughout my house.
>Sitting outside, ba*t, living room etc. So I wanted to see about
>getting a wireless ethernet card for my laptop.
> Has anyone tried or is using a wireless ethernet card on a linux box? I
>assume there is a PCMCIA card for the laptop, which will hopefully mimic a
>standard driver in Linuxconf or with a bit of tweaking, but how does it
>connect to the network. Ideally, I hope there is a "reciever" of the
>encrypted data (sent from the PCMCIA card) that can simply be plugged into
>my ethernet hub and they can all happily communicate. However my search of
>the net seems to show me I need to plug in the reciver card into one of my
>desktops and then configure it for using 2 network cards. There has to be
>an easier way......
> My basic question is this, is there such an animal as a simple wireless
>network that will work with Linux, is it going to cost me an arm and a leg,
>and am I going to have to re-configure my whole network to accomodate it.
>Thank you for any help you can give.

I have seen some wireless LAN access points that cost as much as a PC
(around $800-900). However, I noticed something in the CDW catalog called
ORINOCO (apparently Lucent) Wireless 11Mbps PC card. The Silver card is
$170, the Gold card is $190 (I assume 3.3V instead of 5V), and ISA, PCI or
what they call WavePOINT-II Access Point for $70. However, judging from
their website, that last item is a misprint (actually $760). However,
they do have a wireless to ethernet and serial adapter for $320 and a
couple of others that include ethernet and modem for around $400.

--

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by **Jim** » Sat, 15 Jul 2000 04:00:00

Thanks for the info. I guess this will cost me an arm and a leg. I
mean $170 for the card I can live with but $760 for the hub and THEN $320
for the ethernet adapter. I wonder if I will have to get both the
Access-Point and the adapter?
Gosh someone has to come out with a more cost effective solution. Am I
the only person with a need for this kind of technology? Well at least at
home I might be......

Thanks for the info, I will check out the Lucent website and see what I
can dig up.

Jim

by **sarmasa..** » Sat, 15 Jul 2000 04:00:00

I did a lot of research. If webgear were public I would buy their
stock.
I got a 2-pk from J&R (via yahoo) for $149!!!
The card loads and starts up fine on linux.
insmod ray_cs.o worked beautifully (needed a reboot tho' in rhat)
I just haven't had the time to set up the routnig tables
since I have 3 win98 machines + a linux gateway usign adsl
and two win98 use ethernet, while the laptop uses wireless
and sharing samba-exports thru a gateway is a nightmare... I am still
working on it.

now that the wireless net is working without the linux in between
the laptop-battery is the biggest problem :-)

Sarma

Quote:> Thanks for the info. I guess this will cost me an arm and a leg.
I
> mean $170 for the card I can live with but $760 for the hub and THEN
$320
> for the ethernet adapter. I wonder if I will have to get both the
> Access-Point and the adapter?
> Gosh someone has to come out with a more cost effective solution.
Am I
> the only person with a need for this kind of technology? Well at
least at
> home I might be......

> Thanks for the info, I will check out the Lucent website and see
what I
> can dig up.

> Jim

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Before you buy.

by **Bob Hau** » Sat, 15 Jul 2000 04:00:00

> Has anyone tried or is using a wireless ethernet card on a linux box?

I have three Proxim Symphony cards, one each of ISA, PCI, and PCMCIA,
all working under Linux. I'm generally happy with them, but they are
only 2 Mbit (20-50 mS average latency when pinging between machines).
Also, I've had to hard-code the IO address for the PCI card, which is
sort of annoying but not fatal. Not sure whether this is a problem
just with my machine.

These cards run about $120 each in the local Best Buy.

Quote:>the net seems to show me I need to plug in the reciver card into one of my
>desktops and then configure it for using 2 network cards. There has to be
>an easier way......

Doing that isn't really very hard. I have an old 486 set up as a
router/firewall machine with 1 ethernet, 1 wireless, and a modem. It
handles the Internet and email for everyone. Sits in a corner down in
the ba*t getting ignored.

--
-| Bob Hauck
-| Codem Systems, Inc.
-| http://www.veryComputer.com/

by **Jim** » Sun, 16 Jul 2000 04:00:00

Thanks everyone for all of the brand names. I will start searching for
them. And $120 or so bucks is more then do-able.
But how does the wireless card communicate with the hard-wired ethernet?
Can I use my Linux gateway and install a PCI wireless card in it? Have it
running 2 network cards? I have heard it is possible, I just have to
configure both in Linuxconf. If that's the case and eventually I will get
broadband (hopefully soon) how will I connect the Linux gateway to it? I
have heard of people with broadband using a Linux gateway, they get another
ethernet card to plug the broadband into and then also have the original
ethernet card attached to the ethernet hub. So in order to have a wirless
network I would have 3 network cards? (1 ethernet, 1 broadband, 1 wireless)
Or can I somehow get the wireless PCMCIA card attached to the hardwired
ethernet?
I guess I could just get a wireless PCMCIA card and 2 PCI wireless cards
and just use that as my network and save the PCI ethernet card I have in my
Linux gateway box for my future broadband.
I wonder how much that would cost?? LOL

Thanks everyone for the info.

Jim

by **Bob Hau** » Mon, 17 Jul 2000 04:00:00

> But how does the wireless card communicate with the hard-wired ethernet?
>Can I use my Linux gateway and install a PCI wireless card in it?

Yes. The wireless card looks just like an ethernet card to Linux.

Quote:>configure both in Linuxconf.
>If that's the case and eventually I will get
>broadband (hopefully soon) how will I connect the Linux gateway to it?

Another ethernet card and IP Masquerading. There's some howto's on
this. <http://www.linuxdoc.org/> is your friend.

You would not need another wireless card for the broadband. Instead your
gateway machine would have three cards:
1. ethernet to the dsl or cable modem
2. ethernet to your existing hub
3. wireless

It would act as a router/firewall to connect these three networks and
allow #2 and #3 to access the Internet and each other. You are going
to have to do some reading, but it'll work fine once you get it set up.
This is exactly what I have except that card #1 is a modem and ppp
rather than an ethernet card. But a network interface is a network
interface as far as Linux is concerned.

--
-| Bob Hauck
-| To Whom You Are Speaking
-| http://www.bobh.org/

by **Jim** » Mon, 17 Jul 2000 04:00:00

Well that answers all of my questions. Now its just a matter of finding
the right PCMCIA card and PCI or ISA wireless card for the right price.

Thank you very much for your help Bob.

Jim

by **ericwil..** » Thu, 27 Jul 2000 04:00:00

All:

I am trying to install a PCMCIA Proxim Symphont wireless Ethernet card.
I have installed the driver on the server/router side. It works fine.

Problem Platform:
IBM TP iSeries laptop
RH v6.2
kernel updated to 2.2.16-3

I have compiled the driver for PCMCIA/ laptop. The cardmgr sees the
card just fine - syslog below.

Jul 26 05:42:18 chicago cardmgr[960]: starting, version is 3.1.8
Jul 26 05:42:18 chicago cardmgr[960]: watching 2 sockets
Jul 26 05:42:18 chicago kernel: cs: IO port probe 0x1000-0x17ff: clean.
Jul 26 05:42:18 chicago kernel: cs: IO port probe 0x0100-0x04ff:
excluding 0x3b8
-0x3df 0x408-0x40f 0x480-0x48f 0x4d0-0x4d7
Jul 26 05:42:18 chicago kernel: cs: IO port probe 0x0a00-0x0aff: clean.
Jul 26 05:42:18 chicago cardmgr[960]: initializing socket 0
Jul 26 05:42:18 chicago cardmgr[960]: socket 0: Proxim Symphony PC Card
Jul 26 05:42:19 chicago cardmgr[960]: executing: 'insmod
/lib/modules/2.2.16-3/net/rlmod.o'
Jul 26 05:42:19 chicago cardmgr[960]: + insmod: a module named rlmod
already exists
Jul 26 05:42:19 chicago cardmgr[960]: insmod exited with status 1
Jul 26 05:42:19 chicago cardmgr[960]: executing: 'modprobe net/rlmod'
Jul 26 05:42:19 chicago cardmgr[960]: + modprobe: Can't locate module
net/rlmod
Jul 26 05:42:19 chicago cardmgr[960]: modprobe exited with status 255
Jul 26 05:42:31 chicago kernel: rlmod.o: index 0x01: Vcc 5.0, mem
0xc4079000-0xc
407cfff
Jul 26 05:42:31 chicago kernel: eth0: Error getting the global address.
Jul 26 05:42:31 chicago kernel: rlmod: RegisterClient: Bad adapter
Jul 26 05:42:31 chicago kernel: ds: unable to create instance of
'rlmod'!
Jul 26 05:42:31 chicago cardmgr[960]: bind 'rlmod' to socket 0 failed:
No such device

The latptop hangs at about this point.

I'm certain I've done someting wrong, I just do know what is was.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers;

E!

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Before you buy.

by **Bob Hau** » Thu, 27 Jul 2000 04:00:00

>I have compiled the driver for PCMCIA/ laptop. The cardmgr sees the
>card just fine - syslog below.
>Jul 26 05:42:19 chicago cardmgr[960]: + insmod: a module named rlmod
>already exists

Yeah, but it seems to think that the module is already loaded. Perhaps
some other script is getting there first?

Quote:>Jul 26 05:42:31 chicago kernel: rlmod.o: index 0x01: Vcc 5.0, mem
>0xc4079000-0xc407cfff
>Jul 26 05:42:31 chicago kernel: eth0: Error getting the global address.
>Jul 26 05:42:31 chicago kernel: rlmod: RegisterClient: Bad adapter

And then this other rlmod errors out. I would guess that some other
script is loading the driver before the pcmcia cardmanager comes up.
That fails, as the card isn't ready yet, but not before it prevents
cardmanager from loading rlmod. This driver does take several seconds
to initialize.

Try disabling cardmanager and see if it still hangs/gives errors. If
so, you'll have to find out what's doing it. Maybe your regular
network scripts don't know that your ethernet is pcmcia.

--
-| Bob Hauck
-| Codem Systems, Inc.
-| http://www.codem.com/

by **ewil..** » Sat, 29 Jul 2000 04:00:00

Bob:

Thanks for your previous insight. I still have the other during the
driver's load:

# cat syslog.log
Jul 27 19:50:01 chicago cardmgr[159]: initializing socket 0
Jul 27 19:50:01 chicago cardmgr[159]: socket 0: Proxim Symphony PC Card
Jul 27 19:50:01 chicago kernel: cs: memory probe 0xa0000000-0xa0ffffff:
clean.
Jul 27 19:50:01 chicago cardmgr[159]: executing: 'insmod
/lib/modules/2.2.16-3/pcmcia/rlmod.o'
Jul 27 19:50:14 chicago kernel: rlmod.o: index 0x01: Vcc 5.0, mem
0xc406d000-0xc4070fff
Jul 27 19:50:14 chicago kernel: eth0: Error getting the global address.
Jul 27 19:50:14 chicago kernel: rlmod: RegisterClient: Bad adapter
Jul 27 19:50:14 chicago kernel: ds: unable to create instance of
'rlmod'!
Jul 27 19:50:14 chicago cardmgr[159]: bind 'rlmod' to socket 0 failed:
No such device

Is there a chance the card is DOA? Have you heard any other issues like
this one? Do you know what the typical i/o and irq the PCMCIA card
usually has?

When I query the card with cardctl, it comes back w/ I/O 0x0100 and irq
11. Does this sound right?

I appreciate all the help!

E!

> >I have compiled the driver for PCMCIA/ laptop. The cardmgr sees the
> >card just fine - syslog below.

> >Jul 26 05:42:19 chicago cardmgr[960]: + insmod: a module named rlmod
> >already exists

> Yeah, but it seems to think that the module is already loaded.
Perhaps
> some other script is getting there first?

> >Jul 26 05:42:31 chicago kernel: rlmod.o: index 0x01: Vcc 5.0, mem
> >0xc4079000-0xc407cfff
> >Jul 26 05:42:31 chicago kernel: eth0: Error getting the global
address.
> >Jul 26 05:42:31 chicago kernel: rlmod: RegisterClient: Bad adapter

> And then this other rlmod errors out. I would guess that some other
> script is loading the driver before the pcmcia cardmanager comes up.
> That fails, as the card isn't ready yet, but not before it prevents
> cardmanager from loading rlmod. This driver does take several seconds
> to initialize.

> Try disabling cardmanager and see if it still hangs/gives errors. If
> so, you'll have to find out what's doing it. Maybe your regular
> network scripts don't know that your ethernet is pcmcia.

> --
> -| Bob Hauck
> -| Codem Systems, Inc.
> -| http://www.codem.com/

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

by **Bob Hau** » Sat, 29 Jul 2000 04:00:00

>Thanks for your previous insight. I still have the other during the
>driver's load:
>Jul 27 19:50:14 chicago kernel: eth0: Error getting the global address.
>Jul 27 19:50:14 chicago kernel: rlmod: RegisterClient: Bad adapter
>Is there a chance the card is DOA?

There is always a chance of that.

Quote:>Have you heard any other issues like this one?

Nope. Mine worked right off the bat. Maybe I'm must lucky <g>.

Are you sure that you compiled the rlmod driver with PCMCIA support
(option #3)? You might want to verify that. In looking at the code I
can see how it might give that error if you don't have PCMCIA support.
It is hard to say for sure as the actual init stuff is in a binary
library.

If the card were dead it seems to me that more likely failure modes
would be that the cardmanager would not find the correct ID and such,
or that it would not work once configured. Although anything is
probably possible.

Quote:>Do you know what the typical i/o and irq the PCMCIA card usually has?

There is no "typical" i/o and irq, the cardmanager assigns them. I
could tell you what mine is but I don't have my laptop handy. Another
thing to check...make sure there are no conflicts with 0x100 and 11.
That nothing else is using those. If something is, you may need to
exclude in the PCMCIA setup scripts.

komacke.com has a mailing list for this driver. Might be helpful to
ask there. The README has info.

--
-| Bob Hauck
-| Codem Systems, Inc.
-| http://www.codem.com/

by **Loon** » Fri, 04 Aug 2000 04:00:00

Quote:> Well that answers all of my questions. Now its just a matter of finding
>the right PCMCIA card and PCI or ISA wireless card for the right price.

> Thank you very much for your help Bob.

>Jim

Hi,
I'm starting to look at wireless networks,
I saw an TNC in a catalogue for 60, it just had 2 chips and a few
capicitors, which got me thinking...
It can't be that hard to botch one up??
Anyone know of where I can get the circuit diagrams / kit?
I'm looking to spend around $30 !!! :o)
Cheers
Liam

:I know how to *ftp*! , don't make me USE it !

Very Computer

Wireless ethernet in laptop to hard-wired ethernet network, is it possible?

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Wireless ethernet in laptop to hard-wired ethernet network, is it possible?

Wireless ethernet in laptop to hard-wired ethernet network, is it possible?

Wireless ethernet in laptop to hard-wired ethernet network, is it possible?

Wireless ethernet in laptop to hard-wired ethernet network, is it possible?

Wireless ethernet in laptop to hard-wired ethernet network, is it possible?

Wireless ethernet in laptop to hard-wired ethernet network, is it possible?

Wireless ethernet in laptop to hard-wired ethernet network, is it possible?

Wireless ethernet in laptop to hard-wired ethernet network, is it possible?

Wireless ethernet in laptop to hard-wired ethernet network, is it possible?

Wireless ethernet in laptop to hard-wired ethernet network, is it possible?

Wireless ethernet in laptop to hard-wired ethernet network, is it possible?

Wireless ethernet in laptop to hard-wired ethernet network, is it possible?