[ale] 802.11G Good news, bad news

[Dow Hurst]

I am here at work late so got your post and have a question:

I was under the impression that many of the g based chipsets had 
adjustable power levels.  Also, can you install an external antenna?
Dow


BruceG wrote:

>Hey all, I got an 802.11A/B/G card working in my desktop. Steps follow:
>
>
>1. Install kernel source
>	SuSE 8.2 Personal Edition does not come with kernel source on the CD, nor can 
>you install it by opening up YaST and searching for kernel. You can install 
>kernel source from SuSE ftp site. Download the source, and install with YaST.
>
>2. Before installing the MadWiFi drivers, you need the UUDECODE package. This 
>is provided in SHARUTIL. Go into YaST and search on "provides" for uudecode, 
>or search on name for SHARUTILS. Install the package.
>
>3. Download the MadWiFi drivers from sourceforge. Go to
>http://sourceforge.net/projects/madwifi/ and click on download. Once the 
>package is extracted, view the README file.
>(note: I downloaded the 20030802 snapshot and had problems with my WAP, had to 
>download from CVS to get it working)
>
>	run make
>	Verify make ran cleanly, then install the modules.
>		insmod wlan/wlan.o
>		insmod ath_hal/ath_hal.o
>		insmod driver/ath_pci.o
>
>	After this ran, I did a "make install" to allow the drivers to be loaded 
>automatically.
>
>4. I compiled and installed drivers before installing a wireless card, to make 
>sure I could compile cleanly. You can chose to compile and install first, 
>then purchase an 802.11 A/B/G card, or purchase, then compile!
>
>
>After compiling and installing the card, I ran the following script:
>********************************************************************
>cd /home/bruce/Tmp/madwifi-cvs/madwifi
>insmod wlan/wlan.o
>insmod ath_hal/ath_hal.o
>insmod driver/ath_pci.o
>
>ifconfig ath0 192.168.1.100
>ifconfig ath0 netmask 255.255.255.0
>ifconfig ath0 up
>route add default gw 192.168.1.1
>
>iwconfig ath0 essid bubbaville
>iwconfig ath0 channel 6
>
>
>And, TaDa! No wireless. Urgh. Checked the madwifi list and was given good 
>hints. Apparently the 20030802 file has problems with the Linksys WAP54G. I 
>downloaded from CVS, did the make clean, make, make install - loaded the 
>drivers and wireless works!!!
>
>Now, for the bad news. With a wireless PCI card, the signal can be VERY weak. 
>It's not a good thing at all (sorry Martha Stewart!). My signal quality is 
>here:
>CaptainHaddock:/home/bruce/Tmp/madwifi-cvs/madwifi # iwconfig ath0
>ath0      IEEE 802.11-DS  ESSID:"bubbaville"
>          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.437GHz  Access Point: 00:06:25:3C:03:57
>          Bit Rate=1Mb/s   Tx-Power:0 dBm   Sensitivity=0/3
>          Retry:off   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
>          Encryption key:off
>          Power Management:off
>          Link Quality:0/92  Signal level:5/154  Noise level:0/154
>          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
>          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0
>
>I also get a lot of errored packets, not a pretty sight.
>CaptainHaddock:/home/bruce/Tmp/madwifi-cvs/madwifi # ifconfig ath0
>ath0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:0C:41:16:B2:F1
>          inet addr:192.168.1.100  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
>          inet6 addr: fe80::20c:41ff:fe16:b2f1/64 Scope:Link
>          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
>          RX packets:9831 errors:57420 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:7126
>          TX packets:11012 errors:162 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
>          collisions:0 txqueuelen:199
>          RX bytes:8638926 (8.2 Mb)  TX bytes:1270229 (1.2 Mb)
>          Interrupt:11 Memory:ddb77000-ddb87000
>
>
>And finally, the signal drops and I lose sessions. Makes listening to 
>shoutcast a little strange. And throughput? Not that good considering. I 
>haven't decided if I'll keep the card and wait for driver progress, or if 
>I'll return the card and look for a USB attached 802.11B card with an antenna 
>boost for a better signal. But anyway - you can install an 802.11A/B/G card 
>and get a session. It's just not that pretty yet. I'll try moving the WAP 
>closer to the desktop to see if there is much improvement. If so, I'll look 
>for an antenna for the WAP, or maybe a pigtail and antenna for the PCI card 
>so I can get the antenna out from behind the case.
>
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>
>  
>

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__________________________________________________________
Dow Hurst                  Office: 770-499-3428            *
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Kennesaw State University         Dow.Hurst at mindspring.com *
Kennesaw, GA 30144                                         *
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