[the] Code Girl (aka UnrulyGrrl)

After having my laptop for a week or two, I decided I really should be taking advantage of the 54Mbps potential of the internal wireless. I got a Linksys WRT54G off eBay because I also thought I could use it for this.

I had one heck of a time getting it to work with my integrated wireless in my laptop. Primarily I had issues with the signal level dropping continually. My laptop just refused to associate with the AP most of the time. I made the mistake of choosing the Linksys based solely on its use of Linux. Once I started reading reviews of it, they were almost all negative, mentioning mostly the terrible signal level. Further research turned up the DLink DI624

I’ve had only good luck with DLink products, so I felt good about buying that one. Picked up one from the local Best Buy. It was ridiculously easy to configure, and it was featureful enough that I used it to totally replace my firewall. 5 hours i messed with trying to get the damn Intel 2200 to connect to it, but it just wouldnt. A few days later I popped into Best Buy again and got the DLink DWLG650, so I could see if the problem with the laptop really was the internal wireless.

I chose the DWLG650 because it uses the Atheros chipset, which I found to be one of the best supported 802.11g chipsets under linux. Oddly enough the driver is called “madwifi”. I ‘emerged’ it with Gentoo, and I haven’t looked back since. I loaded the driver, it associated with my AP, got an IP via DHCP and off I went. The speed seems to fluctuate from 54 to 24 to 36 and back. Mostly it stays at 54 though. I really, really, really wish Dell had chosen an Atheros chipset. Since they didn’t, I have given up my 1 and only pcmcia slot. Oh well, I have wireless that works, and that is all
that really matters.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 25th, 2005 at 11:38 pm and is filed under linux, 802.11abgn. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.