[ale] 802.11G Good news, bad news

[BruceG]

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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