Wireless G on Linux in 15-30 minutes

[hard candy]

Linuxant has driver loaders for wireless g adapters and cardbus adapters available. It has a 30 day free trial and then costs $19.95. It uses a wrapper to make the windows drivers off the install cd or the manufacturerer's website available to linux.
Based on Broadcom chipsets:
Company Model Type Driver URL
Belkin F5D7000
F5D7010 PCI
CARDBUS
[Windows Driver]
[Windows Driver]
Buffalo WLI-CB-G54
WLI-CB-G54A
WLI-PCI-G54 CARDBUS
CARDBUS
PCI [Windows Driver]
Linksys WMP54G
WPC54G PCI
CARDBUS [Windows Driver]
[Windows Driver]
Microsoft MN-730
MN-720 PCI
CARDBUS [Windows Driver]
[Windows Driver]


Compaq Presario 2100/2500/3000 Notebook / Integrated [Windows Driver]
Dell TrueMobile 1180 (BCM4301 - 802.11b)
TrueMobile 1300 (BCM4306 - 802.11b+g)
TrueMobile 1400 (BCM4309 - 802.11a+b+g) Notebook / Integrated
Notebook / Integrated
Notebook / Integrated [Windows Driver]
[Windows Driver]
[Windows Driver]
eMachines M5310 Notebook / Integrated
Fujitsu N-Series/E4000D/P5000D/S2000/S6000D Notebook / Integrated [Windows Driver]
Gateway 400/450/600 Series Notebook / Integrated [Windows Driver]
HP Pavillion XF/ZD/ZE Notebook / Integrated [Windows Driver]

Based on Intel chipsets:
Company Model Type Driver URL
Acer TravelMate 800 Notebook with Intel PRO/Wireless LAN 2100 3B Mini PCI Adapter Mini PCI
CARDBUS
PCI [Windows Driver]

Based on Intersil chipsets:
Company Model Type Driver URL
NETGEAR WG511 CARDBUS [Windows Driver]

Based on Realtek chipsets:
Company Model Type Driver URL
D-Link DWL-510 CARDBUS
[Windows Driver]

Based on Atheros chipsets:
Company Model Type Driver URL
Linksys WPC55AG CARDBUS
[Windows Driver]
NETGEAR WG311 CARDBUS [Windows Driver]
Their website:
Linuxant (http://www.linuxant.com/driverloader/index.php#about)
I'm so excited! I had been trying to get a Linksys G notebook adapter to work with linux for the past 2 months-now I had it working in 23 minutes. No patching a kernel manually, no tryng to configure all the settings manually. All automatic. I did it on Slackware 9.1 with a 2,4 kernel. There are rpm's and Debian packages as well. When I consider my time, it is worth $19.95.
(I posted it here, maybe it can be moved to "how I did it" and linked to the hardware forum as well?)
Also, they have one for Conexant modems available.

[hard candy]

I just ran "iwlist scan"- I'm getting 18 Mb/s (no tweaking yet) A good start to the week. Now for some tweaking. :)

Oh, Oh- I just ran "iwlist rate"-54 Mb/s- you ROCK, linuxant. I'm buying stock!:D

[Icarus]

I've been using it on my laptop which has an Intel Pro/Wireless 2100 (Centrino) mini-PCI card and works great (not with Fedora though, still working on that)

I do like what they have done, but giving us a double charge to use the things makes me more then a tad angry.
It stinks that this is the only way to get these cards to work, why do we have to pay for the hardware and pay again to get it to work!?
The worse part is, I'll probally pay the $20 for it, easier then using a PCMCIA card.

Too bad now hardware manifacturers will NOT even try to make true Linux drivers since the Linuxant people have it working this way. Prepar for the Hardware Tech Support answers of "Use the Linuxant wrapper, we do not support Linux" :mad:

[hard candy]

Too bad now hardware manifacturers will NOT even try to make true Linux drivers since the Linuxant people have it working this way. Prepar for the Hardware Tech Support answers of "Use the Linuxant wrapper, we do not support Linux"
I know Broadcom would never support linux-I emailed them and they basically said it was not in their plans. So for those who buy notebooks with integrated wireless, it's a start. Plus, I imagine we would end up paying for it anyway if the manufacturers started including it on the install CD's.
And people like this, prism 54 (http://prism54.org/) , are still working on some drivers. But for now, for me, $20 is OK. Cheaper than buying a new card.

[Icarus]

Broadcom are a bunch of b****ds, they don't even count for the population Census :D

Intel is sitting on the drivers for the Pro/Wireless cards but won't release them because they are afraid of legal action against them (or a pack of angry GNUs for releasing binary-only drivers)

Yes, $20 is about $80 less then buying a new mini-PCI card that works in Linux (Cisco Aironet), but I don't think that is any excuse for the manufactures to shaft everyone that doesn't use Windows...

[hard candy]

Just to play the devils advocate:

let's not forget Apple computers, they are the most closed source company of all in my opinion. Their hardware, their software. Ipod, Macintosh, Airport all designed to run best on their OS only- no linux ports, no windows ports (except Itunes), BSD ports are there but only if the program is based on BSD. That is why they are #2 in the desktop market and soon to be #3 (if not already).

[Alex Cavnar, aka alc6379]

Originally posted by hard candy
Just to play the devils advocate:

let's not forget Apple computers, they are the most closed source company of all in my opinion. Their hardware, their software. Ipod, Macintosh, Airport all designed to run best on their OS only- no linux ports, no windows ports (except Itunes), BSD ports are there but only if the program is based on BSD. That is why they are #2 in the desktop market and soon to be #3 (if not already).

Heck, I'll jump onto that one.

If you've ever worked on any of the older Apple machines, like the OldWorld machines and lower, you'll never want to touch another Mac again. Granted, I like Macs, but their design concepts have been really hit-or-miss. I mean, take the Power Mac 8500. Can anyone explain to me why I should have to dissassemble the whole chassis, then remove the mother board from the chassis, just to replace a clock battery or add more memory? :eek:

FWIW, I'll support Apple if it gets more people using *NIX and interested in free software. But, I don't think I'll be buying any of their products any time soon-- as neat as they are, I don't think the expense is worth it. Not only that, but hard candy's right-- they really don't seem that interested in promoting anything but things specifically designed to run on the Mac OS on Apple hardware. The only reason, I feel, they released a Windows iPod and iTunes for Windows is because only an idiot IMHO couldn't have seen the money to be made there.

[nko]

I think it's worth noting that my iMac is running Linux, and the airport card works out of the box.

[DerekKraan]

Quicktime is a standard as well. It's an Apple thing.

[chesskidd]

Originally posted by hard candy
Linuxant has driver loaders for wireless g adapters and cardbus adapters available. It has a 30 day free trial and then costs $19.95.

hi hard candy, it sounds great, but 1 question before i try it,

what if i buy their linuxant wireless solution, does it only work on per wireless card basis? because i have 2 wireless cards (one for notebook, the other one for desktop), does that mean i have to end up paying roughly 40 bucks to get 2 of my cards to work? :(

[hard candy]

I didn't see any auch restriction in the license. I re-installed it without any problem with a different ditro.

[Icarus]

I have it running (on the same license) with 3 distros...all the same hardware though, what does their AUP say?

6. Redistribution. Redistribution of this software is only permitted for exact copies (without modification) of versions explicitly marked and officially released by Linuxant with the word "free" in their name. Redistribution or disclosure of other versions, derivatives or license key information is expressly prohibited without explicit written approval signed by an authorized Linuxant officer.

Well, THAT doesn't say much either!
But I have to hand to those guys, everytime I check their site there is a new version available! 1.46 now...good to see that they are VERY active!

[Zsolt67]

I just set mine up, it's working great !! Mandrake 9.2
Belkin PCI CARD 802.11g and Router. Getting great transfer rates. thanks for the info:D

[rdeschene2]

I do believe www.linuxant.com license is MAC specific -- so if you need two drivers for two cards, you would need to pay for two licenses.

Check out their website: www.linuxant.com

select Store and read the bottom of the page.

[hard candy]

I have both Linksys and a SMC pcmcia wireless G cards drivers installed in my laptop and can switch between the two cards without any problem.

[bs_texas]

I must be denser than everyone else. :cool:

I signed up at linuxant, got the driver loader free trial, untarred it, ran the make install, ran the dldrconfig, opened http://127.0.0.1:18020, loaded the WPC54G driver, lsbcmnds.inf, which also needed bcmwl5.sys. I went to the settings/advanced screen and I see eth1, the mac address, and some other settings. I pushed save.

Woo hoo!!

:confused: Now what??

Where do I setup my SSID and WEP and stuff? I ran iwconfig and I see eth1 and ESSID:"" in there. Looks like I can use that to set it. Does that write out to a config file?

This is on my newly reinstalled slackware 9.1 system. I'm running KDE, but I don't have to.

Thanks for any further enlightenment...

[Icarus]

Welcome to the world of wireless bs_2003!

I'd suggest opening a new thread in the "Moble" section on this.

Hint: you need to load the license and iw everything ;)

[bs_texas]

Thanks for the reply and hint.

I'll do some more searching tomorrow. I'm kinda burnt out for today. Then I'll open a new thread over in mobile if I need to.

Regards...

[feverwilly]

I have an ibook G4 and would love to install Linux on it but there are no drivers for my built in Airport Wireless card how did you get it working?

Also Is there some OS player for the Windows Media format?

Thanks..

[soda_popstar]

For Centrino users, NDISwrapper (http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net) works pretty well for me.

[hard candy]

I have an ibook G4 and would love to install Linux on it but there are no drivers for my built in Airport Wireless card how did you get it working?

Also Is there some OS player for the Windows Media format?
I suggest looking in the Linux PPC forum, open it up to see the threads for the last year, the Yellowdog site, and if you can't find anything there, look at some BSD sites.

[NegativeZERO]

I have a Compaq R3600 Series which all so uses a broadcom mini-pci wireless adaptor. I was doing some googleing and found this link. I figured it may be a long shot but as soon as I get time I'm going to try it out on mine. Take a look at this link ( HERE (http://bellsouthpwp.net/s/e/sedlabs1/default.html) ) I think it may help a few of you that have broadcom wireless adaptors.

The actual adaptor i have is the
Broadcom 54g MaxPerformance 802.11g

Later
NZ