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Date:      Mon, 15 Jan 2007 16:14:09 -0500
From:      John Nielsen <lists@jnielsen.net>
To:        Lars Stokholm <lars.stokholm@gmail.com>
Cc:        freebsd-net@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Wireless NIC recommendation
Message-ID:  <200701151614.09299.lists@jnielsen.net>
In-Reply-To: <45ABEA01.7090704@gmail.com>
References:  <45ABBFDF.4080708@gmail.com> <200701151344.49696.lists@jnielsen.net> <45ABEA01.7090704@gmail.com>

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On Monday 15 January 2007 15:54, Lars Stokholm wrote:
> John Nielsen wrote:
> > On Monday 15 January 2007 12:54, Lars Stokholm wrote:
> >> Hi, I hope someone can help me with this, before I go mad (no pun
> >> intended.) :)
> >>
> >> I was initially looking for a relatively cheap 54Mbps, 802.11g- and
> >> WPA-capable network card, based on an Atheros chipset, but after
> >> spending the whole of last night looking for one - to no avail - I gave
> >> up.
> >>
> >> I'm almost about to conclude that Atheros is not the way to go. So now I
> >> want to know, if anyone can recommend ANY card, being cheap and
> >> supporting the features mentioned above. I don't mind using NDIS, as
> >> long as it works flawlessly. Also it would be good, if the card was a
> >> popular one, so community support is more available.
> >
> > For driver support in FreeBSD, Atheros is definitely the way to go. Have
> > you looked through the listings here?
> >
> > http://customerproducts.atheros.com/customerproducts/default.asp
>
> Wow, I actually think I found a card there, that is guaranteed to work.
> Is this really the end of all my struggles? :) For only 50 USD. There
> seem to be only one version of the card.
>
> http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=12
> http://edbpriser.dk/Products/Listprices.asp?ID=38373 (in Danish)
>
> The two cards /are/ the same, right?

This is actually the card I have and use in my FreeBSD box as an access point 
(I didn't know it was still available or I would have said so sooner.) Yes, 
they should be the same.

There is an early revision ("A1") card of the same name that actually used a 
non-Atheros chip, but anything you buy today should be "B" or "C" and work 
fine. I have the "B" revision.

Check out the D-Link website (pretend like you're looking for a Windows 
driver) for slightly more information on the different revisions and how to 
identify them.

> Also, it says 108Mps? Does it matter that my AP is only 54Mbps?

Shouldn't matter at all. 108Mbps is often advertised and rarely 
used/practical. The idea is to use two 54Mbps streams at once. You need to 
have a card (and driver) that suport it ("Super-G" or "Extreme-G"), an AP 
that supports it and that acknowledges that your card supports it, and little 
to no other traffic or interference, since most AP's will automatically fall 
back to 54Mbps at the drop of a hat. I'm not sure if ath(4) supports it or 
not, but I've never really cared too much.

JN



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