[clue-tech] going wireless

[Roy J. Tellason]

On Monday 08 December 2008 01:34:58 pm Angelo Bertolli wrote:
> Roy J. Tellason wrote:
> > I recently acquired this Sony laptop that isn't "new" enough to come with
> > any sort of wireless built into it.  I've shrunk the installed XP down to
> > 3G or so and have been running Slackware on the rest of it for a while
> > now.
> >
> > I'm looking to get some idea of what I need to do to get wireless going
> > with this machine.  There's some work that I'm looking at that seems to
> > require it.  I don't even know if I want a pcmcia card or something
> > that'd plug into a USB connector,  or if I have an open slot inside
> > somewhere.
> >
> > A bit of reading on the subject tells me that there are issues with what
> > appears to be the same adapter using different chipsets from time to
> > time. Other than that,  I've not really much of a clue as to what I need
> > to do here.
> >
> > Recommendations for both hardware and software would be appreciated.
>
> Yes, you generally can't determine compatibility based on the brand.
> They can have different chipsets.  However, the good news is, just about
> everything works now.  I don't have a single wireless device that I
> can't get working with ndiswrapper.

I used that for something before,  I can't recall just what at the moment,  
but I also recall running into something on one of the web pages that I was 
browsing yesterday or so that stated that this wasn't a good option for at 
least some applications,  that the mode the app wanted to use wasn't usable 
with ndiswrapper.

> The best advice I can give is not to buy the cheapest thing if it's
> really new.  If you buy a card that's already a year old, you'll have a
> good chance of it working with at least ndiswrapper.
>
> (Too bad ndiswrapper doesn't have its hardware list anymore.)

I did see some hardware listed here and there.  Now if I knew what software I 
might want to run most I could load that up and get something handy to test 
cards with,  if I end up getting something local...



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