Best ipw2100 installation method?

marco1475

Hi!

I have a Fujitsu notebook with the Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless LAN 2100 3B Mini PCI Adapter (rev 04) WLAN adapter and I had it running for a while with Gentoo. However, since I am about to do a re-install, I wanted to ask what the best installation method for this card is, with the newest kernels having it included and all.

As far as I can gather it, there are two possibilities:

I can disable the Generic IEEE 80211 and ipw2100 packages in the kernel, i.e. have no support for these two at all and then simply emerge ipw2100, which emerges ieee80211, ipw2100-firmware and ipw2100. I then add the two modules to /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6 and be done with it.
Or I could enable IEEE 80211 as part of the kernel (<*>) and compile the ipw2100 as a kernel module (<M>) and add it with rc-update to the default runlevel.

The actual question is: what is the "preferred" way? Which way can be updated with less hassle? The emerge ipw2100 possibility gives me probably the newer version of the package, but has the drawback that it complaines about the older Generic IEEE 80211 packages in the kernel and requires me to remove them using a script from portage - something that I do not think is so wise. Nevertheless, I had it running this way for a time. :oops:

So, any simple pro/con discussion about the two installation possibilities - or just pointing out where I am wrong and what I do not understand - would go a long way in my understanding of ipw2100 and how install it properly.

Thanks.
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marco1475