Question: Any good USB dongle that can work as an AP?

wormite · n00b Joined: 05 Apr 2010 Posts: 19

I have recently got hand on a D-link DWA140 usb wireless dongle, its chipset is Ralink RT2870, I have confirmed its working with the official driver.
http://www.ralinktech.com/support.php?s=2
but I still can not enable it with the master mode.

I am seeking for another USB dongle for the capability of kernel support with master mode enabled so that I can use it as an additional wireless link between my two boxes.
Such a link would easily allow remote desktop for tablet PC or pad such as ipad or Notionink's adam pad. The idea is having a touch screen to fully take advantage of my linux box, such as using matlab, and at the same time keep up the refresh rate of the remote desktop with a dedicated wireless network.

I think the era of wireless touch screen, to fully separate the human computer interface and computation itself should not be very far away, which means sitting a box on your desk will enable you to wander around with a thin, touch screen to read books or to do heavy duty work on your bed.

wormite · n00b Joined: 05 Apr 2010 Posts: 19

Well, I found the best answer to my question myself,
if we are not considering all the staging drivers for the kernel itself, just look at this page.
http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers
Search for USB and look at the AP capability.

wormite · n00b Joined: 05 Apr 2010 Posts: 19

Currently the most promising AP with N capability seems to be the carl9170
The most stable one seems to be p54usb
for the USB dongles.
Has anyone figured out the minimal installation for VNC remote desktop viewer?

gerdesj · Posted: Mon Feb 07, 2011 1:09 am Post subject:

wormite · n00b Joined: 05 Apr 2010 Posts: 19

Thanks gerdesj, that was a very good tip, I will try it out and report back.
What I meant by "minimal" is trying to remotely access the server's remote desktop with the minimal resources required on the client both in the sense of
memory and cpu time. That means cutting down all the redundant work load, such as X server itself.
I believe what you provided is a solution to this. I have tried the xtightvncviewer on a machine with LXDE (Lubuntu), which convinced me
that we still need some compression of the information transmitted for display. I used a cross ethernet cable which should be capable of
exchanging information between the client and sever at
a speed of 10MBps, the result still shows a great deal of slow refreshing. (0.5s for an operation to really take effect on the client)
I do not think that the wireless can surpass the speed of ethernet cable, which is still much slower than a VGA or DVI cable. But I am still
exploring the possibility of having a portable, thin, light, display screen with touch screen capability which communicates with the the server
at low latency(high refreshing rate for the display). I was hoping that the new trend of android tablets will give an answer to this.

cwr · Veteran Joined: 17 Dec 2005 Posts: 1969

You might want to look at the Asus WL 330gE - it's not a USB dongle, but it's almost as
compact, and will do pretty much whatever you want as far as wiireless is concerned.

Will