From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Oct 23 03:03:18 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D80DE16A4CE for ; Sat, 23 Oct 2004 03:03:18 +0000 (GMT) Received: from audiogram.mail.pas.earthlink.net (audiogram.mail.pas.earthlink.net [207.217.120.253]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3CCCA43D58 for ; Sat, 23 Oct 2004 03:03:18 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from algould@datawok.com) Received: from 31-21.lctv-ubr2-blk1.cablelynx.com ([206.255.31.21] helo=[192.168.63.10]) by audiogram.mail.pas.earthlink.net with asmtp (TLSv1:RC4-MD5:128) (Exim 4.34) id 1CLCBZ-0004fB-DM; Fri, 22 Oct 2004 20:03:17 -0700 From: "Andrew L. Gould" To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org, racerx@makeworld.com, Luke Kearney Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 22:03:36 -0500 User-Agent: KMail/1.6.2 References: <20041023101555.969B.LUKEK@meibin.net> <200410222021.35476.racerx@makeworld.com> In-Reply-To: <200410222021.35476.racerx@makeworld.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: <200410222203.36326.algould@datawok.com> X-ELNK-Trace: ee791d459e3d6817d780f4a490ca69564776905774d2ac4b274e3342c9d33b56cb683675e5b99024350badd9bab72f9c350badd9bab72f9c350badd9bab72f9c X-Originating-IP: 206.255.31.21 Subject: Re: BSD Wireless X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 03:03:19 -0000 On Friday 22 October 2004 08:21 pm, Chris wrote: > On Friday 22 October 2004 08:17 pm, Luke Kearney wrote: > > Hi List, > > I am looking to purchase a wireless PCI card for a new machine here > > at my home. I was wondering if anyone can share sucess or horror > > stories about the Elecom range of products. I am wanting to use one > > machine as the access point and one machine as the client. I wasn't > > planing to deploy a hardware access point though if the consensus > > is that a hardware access point is the better way to go I could > > certainly start looking at this. > > > > Thanks > > Just read what hardware is supported to date, buy it, then you can't > go wrong. Pretty easy, aye? Sadly, no. Vendor's have changed chipsets without changing model numbers or documenting the chipsets used on retail boxes. Further, many of the pci cards that are documented as being compatible with FreeBSD are no longer easy to find. The advantages of a hardware access point include: 1. Access and firewall configuration are done easily via a web browser. 2. They are OS-neutral. For anyone running FreeBSD 5* who needs a new wireless card (pci or pccard), I would suggest looking at the D-Link products that use the Atheros chipset. D-Link is displaying the Atheros logo on the retail boxes, which lowers the risk of a bad purchasing decision. (I'm not an advocate for D-Link or Atheros; but I am in favor of more useful information on retail boxes.) Best of luck, Andrew Gould