Building a Wireless AP -- what NIC to get?

boobytrapped

Question first: do you know of a PCI wireless card that still comes with the Prism/2/2.5/3 chipset :?:

Story:
Ever since my linksys wireless router/AP died

(eh, what else should i have expected from the cheap-ass router), I have wanted to build a wireless access point using my gentoo desktop computer. I want to be able to run in managed mode (ie. a true access point).

The HostAP wireless drivers for Prism2/2.5/3 based 802.11b network cards are just perfect for this job.

Uptil recently popular brands like linksys, netgear, and D-Link used to have the Prism chipset in them, and since these are the most widely available brands (even in the great white north), life was just perfect.

However, recently almost every manufacturer has changed and switched to other chipsets (sometimes even without changing the product part-number! you have to buy the card and do lspci before findout what chipset it has). (What's worse is that many of these manufactures are now using the Broadcom chipset -- who don't show any intention of releasing a driver for linux :evil:

- not only can you not build an AP - it won't even *run* on linux. Stay way from that chipset at all costs).

So, I am looking for a prism based card; available from a retailer who ships to canada (whats up with the retailers not shipping to canada?)

swingarm · Posted: Sat Sep 20, 2003 9:45 pm Post subject:

First off I apologize if the following is not what your looking for.

A couple of weeks ago I went thru hell trying to get PCMCIA to work on my Laptop so if your project involves a PCMCIA card I found the following website very helpful when I went shopping on Ebay:

http://www.linux-wlan.org/docs/wlan_adapters.html

Good Luck.

7dave7 · n00b Joined: 21 Sep 2003 Posts: 12

Why go with 802.11b when 802.11g is available?

I'm using the SMC 2802w card in my gentoo AP and it's working great. The driver web site is at http://ruslug.rutgers.edu/~mcgrof/802.11g/ if you're interested.

boobytrapped · Posted: Sun Sep 21, 2003 3:14 pm Post subject:

Thanks 7dave7 - I didn't know that a linux AP using 802.11g was possible yet. That was exactly the kind of information I was looking for!

I am going to build a AP using this card, and will post my experiences here later.