Re: what WLAN-CF Card for OpenZaurus

On 12/20/06, Kevin <lists-rlw6wC9k61x8UrSeD/[email protected]> wrote:
> Kevin wrote:
> > Angus Ainslie wrote:
> >> On Tue, 2006-19-12 at 11:02 -0800, Justin Patrin wrote:
> >>>> Which card are you using (and in which machine and which OS: Sharp, OZ, etc.)?
> >>>>
> >>> I've answered this before. Ambicom WL1100C-CF. C3000. OZ.
> >>>
> >> On a 3200 with OZ 3.5.4.1 I use a CF Symbol Spectrum 24. Its one of the
> >> lowest power cards currently out.
> >>
> >> Angus
> >
> > Thank you both, gents.
> >
> > Do either of you know of any such cards that support WPA2 (or even WPA-PSK)?
> >
> > After much searching, I can't seem to find any.
>
> 802.11b-based devices:
>
> After even more searching, I'm coming to the conclusion that there is no
> device that complies with ((802.11b) and (not 802.11g) and (802.11i)).  This
> last is of course the spec for WPA2.  802.11g was released in 2003 and
> 802.11i was released in 2004, so I'm thinking that this implies that any
> device which supports 802.11i (WPA2) will be a g-based device rather than a
> strictly b-based device.  If nobody knows of such cards that support WPA2,
> then can anyone comment on whether or not this seems like sound reasoning or
> if there are any known exceptions to the rule of thumb I've proposed here?

I know little about WPA2 or WPA, really, but I have done a few
different types of WPA on my C3000 with the Ambicom card. According to
the Wikipedia article on 802.11i it is mostly OS updates that allow
users to use WPA2, not new cards. I'm pretty sure myself that most if
not all of the support for 802.11i is in software/drivers, not the
hardware. This is actually most of the problem with the g devices as
they have more/most of their implementation in their drivers and not
in firmware on the card itself and the manufacturers don't want to
open their source.

According to that article, you simply need a driver that supports WPA2
and wpa_supplicant to use it in Linux.

>
> 802.11g-based devices:
>
> If so (that there are probably no b-based devices that support WPA2), then
> are there *any* 802.11g, CF form factor, WLAN cards that *are* known to
> operate with the 3200 and OZ?  With this question, I'm following up on
> Justin's comment above:
>
> "There are a few "g" chip sets supported, but not many."
>
> With much searching, I found a few web pages that commented on this issue,
> and there are apparently some 802.11g cards that support WPA2 and that work
> with *Linux* (generally), but I can't find any in a CF form factor.
>
> This site:
> http://users.linpro.no/janl/hardware/wifi.html
>
> seems to be a good resource, and I searched in particular for any CF-based
> rt2500 chip sets, and found this:
>
> http://ralink.rapla.net/
>
> which seems to imply that there are none.  Perhaps the rt2500 chip set is
> too big to fit on a CF form factor card?
>
> This below also helped elaborate on the picture, but still doesn't give me
> the information I hoped to find.  Justin, if you know that the Ambicom
> WL1100C-CF works, then you may want to update the database here which now
> describes the device's functionality as "ambiguous."
>
> http://tuxmobil.org/pcmcia_linux.html
>
> Any further thoughts would be most welcome.  The fact that there's been only
> one thread this year on WPA seems to indicate that nobody is doing this with
> the Zaurus.  What is everyone else doing?  WEP?  Surely everyone knows by
> now that WEP is transparent?  Is everyone else doing with no encryption?
>

I know that I can't afford to just go out and buy new WAPs when I've
already spent so much on my wireless. I also know that WEP is at least
better than nothing. Who would break my WEP when there are so many
open APs out there anyway? I suggest you push more wireless
manufacturers to open their code or write Linux drivers (and
port/compile them for Zaurus) and in the meantime try one of the
known-working wireless cards.

Upon further looking, hostap for a prism chipset and wpa_supplicant
says it supports WPA2. I'm seeing some evidence on the web that the
Ambicom WL1100C-CF is Prism, but I'm not entirely sure of that. What I
am sure of is that I've done some WPA with my Ambicom with
wpa_supplicant. Whether or not it's WPA or WPA2 I don't know, but I've
gotten it connected to a network that had a 2-3 step connection
process with a login.

-- 
Justin Patrin

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