Pcmcia Wireless

[Guest bolanski]

What Wireless card should I buy if i want it to work fine and be easy to install in Mandrake 9.0. I would prefer a card I can install using a GUI and not have to get into console or write config files to activate.

 

I have tried RH8 and there I can add some wireless using the Network install GUI thing is it the same deal in MDK9?

 

I have looked at Dlink 650+ 22mbit, netgear MP401 11mbit (i think thats the name) and 3com Xjack wireless 11mbit

 

/andy

[Guest SunnyJim]

Netgear does have a good card. The upside is it is easy to find right now. Many of the cards that have been a good bet in the past have recently changed the chipset they use making them incompatible with the drivers people had been using.

 

I bought the Netgear MA401 card at Best Buy the other day -- banking on the fact that it would be well-supported under Linux. Netgear does a pretty good job this way. Actually Netgear will tell you it doesn't work but don't believe them. It does. :D

 

You have to be sure you know which version of the MA401 you have (MA401 or MA401RA) but they will work (as opposed to some of the cards you'll find now). The Netgear MA401 and a Netgear MA401RA are TOTALLY different. Netgear MA401 uses the prism2_cs driver from wlan-ng, whereas MA401RA uses the orinoco driver from the pcmcia package.

 

It's not important to know this except if you are trying to use either of these cards in Mandrake 9.0. Both cards work. You just have to make sure Mandrake knows which driver to use.

 

I did this from the command line:

 

I ran:

 

/sbin/cardctl ident

 

and got:

 

socket 0

product infor: "Netgear MA401RA Wireless PC", "Card", "ISL37300P", "Eval-RevA"

manfid: 0x000b, 0x7300

function: 6 (network)

socket 1:

no product info available

 

I know you said you didn't want to edit any config files but this is easy and you get a card that works well under linux.

 

If it is the MA401RA like mine was (I think most of the new ones are), you simply add these lines to /etc/pcmcia/config :

 

card "NETGEAR MA401RA Wireless PC"

manfid 0x000b, 0x7300

bind "orinoco_cs"

 

Basically, it's just telling Mandrake which driver to use. From there on you can use the graphical utilities in Mandrake to configure it.

 

Hope this helps.

 

--SunnyJim

[Guest bolanski]

Yeah that worked nice. Mabey you have any trix up the sleeve for the same problem on a Netgear MA311 Wirelless PCI card to?

 

All the help and info i have found says its a Prism 2.5 (and i can see that in my hardware browser GUI thingy) and that the orinoco_pci should work. So my question is how do I add that driver so it can be found in the network device GUI.

 

I guess its kinda the same solution needed and that I add the driver into a config file somewhere. And then its avalible in the add device list for my netdevices

 

You could mail me at andreas@bolanski.com if you want.

 

/andy