[plug] Netgear 802.11g PCMCIA card works under Linux

[Alan Graham]

Just thought I'd let people know...

I asked if anyone had an 802.11g card working a couple of weeks ago, so
that I could buy a "known to work" card.  After browsing the web,
googling everywhere, etc, I finally bought a Netgear access point and
802.11g card package from Harris Technology (approx $170).  I installed
it this morning, and it all works fine.  Setting up the pcmcia card
under Linux was harder than setting up the networking on my wife's mac
powerbook, but not by too much.  I had to download the firmware and
place it in /usr/lib/hotplug/firmware, then use iwconfig to set the WEP
key, set up the default route, and I was away!

The laptop's an old Gateway PIII 550, running Mandrake 10.0 official. 
Kernel 2.6.3-7mdk.

The card's a Netgear WG511.

One caveat;  this card is running the prism chipset (or at least, it's
using the prism54 driver)  Some people have reported that Netgear have
changed chipsets on the WG511 a couple of times, so you can't guarantee
that all WG511 cards will work.

One other problem; the prism54 driver doesn't support WPA yet.  WEP
works fine tho', and WPA is coming Real Soon Now(tm)  :-)

BTW, the firmware is for the Intersil ISL3890.  Googleing (sp?) for that
should get a download site, or email me and I can email the one I
downloaded.  It's only about 90k.

Regards

Alan
-- 
Alan Graham <alan.graham at infonetsystems.com.au>
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