In case you are planning to buy wireless PCI/USB

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Wed, Dec 21, 2005 at 03:44:40PM -0500, William Park wrote:
> I just joined the wireless revolution, and I'm not impressed.
> I bought 
>     - Airlink AWLH3026 PCI -- Ralink 2561 chip

Well that one should work with linux from what I have read.

>     - Airlink AWLL3026 USB -- ZyDAS 1211 chip (cheap clipped on plastic case)

Not a clue.

> Manufacturer changed the chipset on me.  So, what I got wasn't what
> others reported, and it took some time/effort before I could locate
> source-code drivers.  Anyways, it's kind of cool to see USB key booting
> off, and doing X-terminal session through USB wireless. :-)

That is why there are always warnings to check the revision on wireless
adapters (and non wireless for that matter).  A revision change can
include a completely different chipset.  I think it's dirty marketing,
but some companies think it is a valid way to get around having to make
new boxes, new manuals, and such, and it even gets around the comapnies
that have a policy saying 'you must use device x on these machines so we
can use standard drivers on all the boxes', which of course then breaks
because the drivers are not the same and the old standard image won't
work on a new box with the new revision.  I liked that at least 3com put
a letter at the end of their nic models when they changed chipsets, like
3c905A, 3c905B, and 3c905C.

> But, I'm getting only 11Mbit (802.11b), when both end of Ad-Hoc wireless
> is 54Mbit (802.11g).  They're bloody 2m apart!
> 
> I would like to acknowledge
>     - Bill Thanis (TLUG) for lending me his very expensive Lucent
>       Orinoco Gold PCMCIAs and PCI-to-PCMCIA adapter.
>     - Jeff Lorentz (BGLUG) for his most informative website.

Len Sorensen
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