[clue-tech] WEP/WPA depend on wireless card?

[June Tate-Gans]

On Tue, Feb 2, 2010 at 8:45 AM, Jim Ockers <ockers at ockers.net> wrote:
> Hi Adrian,
>
> I think the WPA support depends only on the device driver for the
> wireless network hardware. That is the only hardware-specific thing to
> worry about. I would think probably most of the WLAN device drivers in
> Kubuntu 9.04 support WPA.
>
> Good luck,
> Jim

Actually, there is a chunk of the WPA implementation that must reside
in the radio as well. As a for-instance, I cannot do WPA with the pair
of Orinoco Gold and Silver wireless cards that I have because the
hardware just doesn't support it (one supports WEP30 only and the
other WEP30/128). For reference, those cards are pretty old -- they're
from around the '90s or so -- but the point is still valid.

Adrian F. Nagle, IV wrote:
>
> I think my router supports WPA security.  I use Kubuntu 9.04 on my
> laptop.  I'm wondering if I can simply set my wireless router to use
> WPA and change the settings for the wireless connection to the new
> WPA security settings.  Would there be compatibility issues with the
> wireless radio hardware?  I'm using the old laptop's internal wireless
> radio.
>
> Adrian

It's hard to tell whether or not your wireless card can do this
without knowing the make and model. A good idea how to find out
whether or not it supports WPA is to go visit
<http://www.linuxwireless.org/en/users/Devices/> and follow the
bouncing links until you find the make and model of your card. You
can't find the make and model easily, a "sudo lspci |grep -i wireless"
will generally reveal it. For reference, here's the console output
from my Lenovo X200:

  furian:~$ sudo lspci |grep -i wireless
  Password:
  03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications In. AR5001
Wireless Network Adapter (rev 01)
  furian:~$ _

If that grep string doesn't find it, try looking through the lspci
output manually through a pager like more until you find something
like the above.

HTH

-- 
June Tate-Gans    | Don't try to outweird me, three-eyes. I get stranger things
www.theonelab.com | than you free with my breakfast cereal. -- Zaphod Beeblebrox