Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2001 11:41:53 -0400 From: Bob Johnson <bob@eng.ufl.edu> To: wayne.pascoe@realtime.co.uk Cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Wireless setup Message-ID: <3B2F72C1.DC177BAD@eng.ufl.edu>
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> > Date: 19 Jun 2001 09:00:16 +0100 > From: Wayne Pascoe <wayne.pascoe@realtime.co.uk> > Subject: [Wayne Pascoe <wayne.pascoe@realtime.co.uk>] Wireless setup > > My apologies if this has already appeared. I posted it last night, and > have still not seen it on the list... > > Hi there, > > I am looking at going wireless at home. My server / internet gateway > lives downstairs, below the computer room upstairs. The walking > distance is about 15 meters. The direct distance between the machines > is about 8 meters, but with a floor between them. > > At the end of the day I need to have 3 laptops and 2 pc's on the > network. The one pc is my internet gateway and home file server. The > other PC is my main machine and my games machine. The laptops are my > wife's and her parents. > > The PCI cards that I am looking at at are D-Link DWL-500's and the > PCMCIA cards are D-Link DWL-650's. Are these cards supported under > 4.3-STABLE ? The DWL-500 looks like a pcmcia card plugged into some > kind of PCI bridge... Also, do they have the range for this kind of > setup ? The DWL-650 partially works in 4.3-RELEASE (or RELENG_4_3, which is 4.3-RELEASE with security patches), but it did not work when I tested it in 4.3-STABLE a week or two ago. The problem was probably introduced in late April, judging from the change log for the driver. I say "partially" because I haven't been able to get encryption working. It works fine without encryption. I'm using the "wi" driver, which is already set up for that card in the pccard.conf file in 4.3. In my office, through concrete walls and a few wooden doors, the range is only about 15 meters. I haven't yet tested the maximum range at home where I use it most of the time, but through normal interior walls it ought to cover most houses. If I recall correctly, D-Link says it will have 10 - 300 meters range, depending on environment. One review I saw said that the card performs very well until it gets near the limit of its range, then drops off rapidly, i.e. you will generally have either 11 mbps connections, or nothing; it only falls back to lower data rates shortly before it loses the connection completely. So far that seems to be what happens to me, although I haven't looked at it in detail. > > Lastly, what base station can people advise ? I need the cheapest one > possible that will do the job and keep up with my needs for about 9 > months. I bought D-Links home router-firewall-printer server-10/100 switch- wireless access point. I forget the model number (513 maybe?). It is pretty neat. It's about $50 more than the basic AP in the U.S. > > Any advice on these matters would be much appreciated. I don't really > want to spend money on the wrong solution :) > I'm rather limited by the lack of encryption. I wouldn't advise anyone to run a wireless AP without encryption, so it might be wise to look for a solution that is 100% functional, although that seems to limit you to the higher-priced cards. The -mobile mailing list archives indicate that there is some interest in making the D-Link DWL-650 and the Linksys WPC11 (I think that's the number) fully functional because they are getting so cheap and common. I don't know how much progress is being made on this. I hope it happens soon, or I will break down and buy a card that supports encryption. Also, it might be a good idea to stick with devices that are WI-FI certified, so you can be fairly confident that they will interoperate if you get mixed brands. See http://www.wi-fi.com/ > Thanks, Good luck, - Bob > > - -- > - - Wayne Pascoe To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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