On Thu, 2005-01-27 at 11:09 -0700, George wrote:
> Barns & Noble brags about having wireless.  This is way out of my comfort
> zone so I am hoping for some advice.
> 
> They have a white paper on using their Internet connection but are out of
> it.
> 
> Questions:
> 
> 1) Any suggestions of what steps might be needed to use this on a Win 2000
> system?  Could it be as simple as showing up and turning on?
> 
> 2) Without the white paper how does one know if it is A, B or G etc.  Or, do
> we care.
> 
> 3) While the laptop is W2K it is destined for Linux (probably ubuntu) when
> the 2K need (cust requirement) expires, Therefore I am looking for
> suggestions for a USB wireless device that will like W2k, like Linux and
> like Barns & Nobel.
> 
> 4) Is there a risk of painting myself into a corner (lack of planning)
> whereby it will not work at... say a Stammtisch or East Side/West Side
> meetings?
----
I know of no USB wireless devices that 'just work' on Linux. Generally,
the best option is to use pcmcia devices.

Device's that 'just work' on Linux tend to be the one's that use the
orinoco_cs module - which evidently is the Wavelan/Aegere or what I saw
last night that Mike Hoy used, a netgear model #MA401 (why it didn't
'just work' for him, I don't know but once the idiot that had embedded
an encryption key in his never used access point router, disabled
encryption on the access point, it indeed just worked).

Getting wireless devices to work on Linux can be a black art and I would
heavily recommend using one of the orinoco compatible devices - as for
most distro's, modules are distributed with kernel and they should 'just
work'. 

I do have a Wavelan silver that I would sell (it's new, unused) for what
I got into it $50. No drivers disks (can be downloaded from internet -
none needed for Linux) and I purchased several of them - use 1 in my
funky Sony Picturebook (forgot to show Mike how cool X is on that thing)
and it works on Win2K dual boot with software downloaded from Internet
and got another to work on old Apple PowerBook (before Airport). Silver
means only 64 bit encryption supported - not 128 bit. Also - in case
this isn't clear...it's 802.11b

Craig

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