Anybody who uses the 32-bit cardbus cards are going to give you
troubles.
Actually, D-Link is still selling the DWL-650+ as the DWL-650....at
least a few months ago, that is...when purchasing D-Link cards, we could
no longer just purchase them based on the model number...many vendors
on-line don't distinguish between the two D-Link DWL650 models.
Two wireless chipsets that WILL give you trouble:
* new TI chipset used in D-Link cards and others,
* RealTek 8180L used in various cheaper cards, such as phoebe.
the RealTek 8180L has a closed source module which uses ioctl() calls to
control it. They say they have source available, but it is a thin shim
to a binary only module...and it really pushes the envelope of "GPL
complaint"....many on the kernel mailing list say it is blatantly NOT
GPL complaint (their binary module uses kernel code and the open source
portion is not a bridge, just a pathetic attempt to shoe-horn their
binary portion into the kernel).
I have scathing things to say about the RealTek driver....regardless of
its legal status, it does not follow the Open Source spirit...which
wouldn't bother me too much. It's just that their driver is a piece of
shit and the developer should be shot for releasing that code.
That and they won't give us (open source community) ANY whitepapers so
we can develop our own driver....if anybody out there has connections to
RealTek or a RealTek distributor, please get me a copy of their
white-paper! I'd be willing to write up such a driver. My employer is
too small for RealTek to bother with.
On Thu, 2004-01-22 at 23:08, Matt Alexander wrote:
> On Thu, 22 Jan 2004, Jeff Garland wrote:
>
> > On Thu, 22 Jan 2004 17:24:41 -0800 (PST), Mario S. Hines wrote
> > > Does Mandrake 9.2 support the TI-Chip in the DWL-650+?
> > > Someone please let me know so that I may figure if I
> > > want to upgrade to 9.2 or stay with 9.1. Thanks.
> >
> > Seems to. I'm using 9.2 on my IBM laptop with the DWL-650.
>
> The DWL-650 uses a completely different chipset than the DWL-650+. The
> DWL-650+ is a pain in the ass to get working. If you really want to use
> it and you can't return it for a card that's known to easily work with
> Linux, then here's a HOWTO to get you started:
>
> http://www.wickle.com/weblog/index.php?p=49&more=1
>
> I finally got it working on a RH 9 box, then upgraded to Fedora, went
> through the hassle again to get it working and ended up just buying a
> Cisco Aironet 350 from amazon.com, which works flawlessly.
> ~M
>
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