2003-08-15 09:11:02

by Christian Axelsson

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Current status of Intel PRO/Wireless 2100

Whats the current status of the Intel PRO/Wireless 2100 MiniPCI?
Some rumours says that its based upon the prisma 2.5 chip but I havent
had any luck with those drivers. Intel stays passive it seems.

Regards

--
Christian Axelsson
[email protected]



2003-08-15 10:18:20

by Anders Karlsson

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: Current status of Intel PRO/Wireless 2100

On Fri, 2003-08-15 at 10:10, Christian Axelsson wrote:
> Whats the current status of the Intel PRO/Wireless 2100 MiniPCI?
> Some rumours says that its based upon the prisma 2.5 chip but I havent
> had any luck with those drivers. Intel stays passive it seems.

It is not a Prism 2.5 chipset, it is an Intel chipset that currently is
unsupported. I have not had a response from Intel in my last mail to
them, but I guess there could be holiday time there.

For the time being those mini-PCI cards is dead weight in the laptop I
am afraid. I hope that either Intel suddenly sees sense (snowflake in
hell analogy coming on) or some bright spark reverse engineers the card
and writes an alpha driver that surpasses the functionality of the Intel
beta drivers they keep under lock and key internally.

I'll probably locate some Prism CardBus card in the meantime to use.

--
Anders Karlsson <[email protected]>
Trudheim Technology Limited


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2003-08-19 12:42:14

by Bas Mevissen

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Subject: Re: Current status of Intel PRO/Wireless 2100

Anders Karlsson wrote:

> On Fri, 2003-08-15 at 10:10, Christian Axelsson wrote:
>

(mini-PCI WLAN cards in notebooks)

> For the time being those mini-PCI cards is dead weight in the laptop I
> am afraid. I hope that either Intel suddenly sees sense (snowflake in
> hell analogy coming on) or some bright spark reverse engineers the card
> and writes an alpha driver that surpasses the functionality of the Intel
> beta drivers they keep under lock and key internally.
>
> I'll probably locate some Prism CardBus card in the meantime to use.
>

My dead weight was called Dell TrueMobile 1300 (with BroadCom chipset).
What I did is buying a NetGear WG311 PCI card (802.11b/g). It contains a
mini-pci card in a slot unders a metal cover and some small stuff on the
PCI-shape PCB.

The cover is easy to remove (only 3 pins) and the antenna is not
soldered, but connected with the same connector as in my notebook. I
could only connect 1 (main) antenna, but the PCI card has only one
antenna too. So you only loose antenna diversity.

The NetGear contains an Atheros chipset. There is some open source stuff
available (URL forgotten) and a driver (mafwifi) with a binary-only
hardware abstraction. Not really what you want, but at least a start. A
combination of both may lead to a more desirable result. But for me it
is fine to use. Only I can not issue bug reports when the driver has
been loaded since the last boot.

Oh,
#include <stddisclaimer.h>
#include <donttryat.h>
#include <nowarrenty.h>

Regards,

Bas.

BTW. I have a PCI card with Broadcom chipset for sale now :-)



2003-08-21 17:33:42

by Mr. James W. Laferriere

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: Current status of Intel PRO/Wireless 2100

Hello Bas , Do you (or anyone else) know which of the 'PCI' based
cards are use the 'mini-pci' cards on a bridge card ?

I'd really like more of a selection to choose from than just
Netgear . The Netgear card you spoke of below religously doesn't
mention Linux in it's support sections . But , (hopefully) it
appears that you are using under linux , correct ? Tia , JimL

On Tue, 19 Aug 2003, Bas Mevissen wrote:
> Anders Karlsson wrote:
> > On Fri, 2003-08-15 at 10:10, Christian Axelsson wrote:
> (mini-PCI WLAN cards in notebooks)
> > For the time being those mini-PCI cards is dead weight in the laptop I
> > am afraid. I hope that either Intel suddenly sees sense (snowflake in
> > hell analogy coming on) or some bright spark reverse engineers the card
> > and writes an alpha driver that surpasses the functionality of the Intel
> > beta drivers they keep under lock and key internally.
> > I'll probably locate some Prism CardBus card in the meantime to use.
> My dead weight was called Dell TrueMobile 1300 (with BroadCom chipset).
> What I did is buying a NetGear WG311 PCI card (802.11b/g). It contains a
> mini-pci card in a slot unders a metal cover and some small stuff on the
> PCI-shape PCB.
> The cover is easy to remove (only 3 pins) and the antenna is not
> soldered, but connected with the same connector as in my notebook. I
> could only connect 1 (main) antenna, but the PCI card has only one
> antenna too. So you only loose antenna diversity.
> The NetGear contains an Atheros chipset. There is some open source stuff
> available (URL forgotten) and a driver (mafwifi) with a binary-only
> hardware abstraction. Not really what you want, but at least a start. A
> combination of both may lead to a more desirable result. But for me it
> is fine to use. Only I can not issue bug reports when the driver has
> been loaded since the last boot.
> BTW. I have a PCI card with Broadcom chipset for sale now :-)
--
+------------------------------------------------------------------+
| James W. Laferriere | System Techniques | Give me VMS |
| Network Engineer | P.O. Box 854 | Give me Linux |
| [email protected] | Coudersport PA 16915 | only on AXP |
+------------------------------------------------------------------+

2003-08-22 09:44:46

by Bas Mevissen

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: Current status of Intel PRO/Wireless 2100

Mr. James W. Laferriere wrote:
> Hello Bas , Do you (or anyone else) know which of the 'PCI' based
> cards are use the 'mini-pci' cards on a bridge card ?
>

Probably all PCI-cards that have a huge metal casing. PCI WLAN cards are
not so common (desktop and wireless is a bit silly :-))and hence the
development costs for a "real" PCI WLAN card might be too high compared
to the extra cost of using a Mini-PCI and a bridge. Actually, "bridge"
is too much honour for the remaining card. Slot converter is more
appropriate.

> I'd really like more of a selection to choose from than just
> Netgear . The Netgear card you spoke of below religously doesn't
> mention Linux in it's support sections . But , (hopefully) it
> appears that you are using under linux , correct ? Tia , JimL
>

We all like that. Actually, I wanted to have an 802.11a/b/g from a
supplier that has real open source drivers. But it was all I could get
on a short term.

I use it with Linux. Actually, I did not more than a few tests. But I
know it works and I verified it with the XP install that came with the
notebook. I just had to install the PCI-card drivers there.

(general remark) Note that this kind of use of mini-pci modules is all
on your own risk and responsibility. Maybe I better had not told this on
LKML. But now that has happened, I advise people to think twice before
doing it and ask me for details in private if they feel uncertain about it.

Regards,

Bas.



2003-08-22 13:12:05

by Christian Axelsson

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: Current status of Intel PRO/Wireless 2100

Bas Mevissen wrote:
> Mr. James W. Laferriere wrote:
>
>> Hello Bas , Do you (or anyone else) know which of the 'PCI' based
>> cards are use the 'mini-pci' cards on a bridge card ?
>>
>
> Probably all PCI-cards that have a huge metal casing. PCI WLAN cards are
> not so common (desktop and wireless is a bit silly :-))and hence the
> development costs for a "real" PCI WLAN card might be too high compared
> to the extra cost of using a Mini-PCI and a bridge. Actually, "bridge"
> is too much honour for the remaining card. Slot converter is more
> appropriate.
>
>> I'd really like more of a selection to choose from than just
>> Netgear . The Netgear card you spoke of below religously doesn't
>> mention Linux in it's support sections . But , (hopefully) it
>> appears that you are using under linux , correct ? Tia , JimL
>>
>
> We all like that. Actually, I wanted to have an 802.11a/b/g from a
> supplier that has real open source drivers. But it was all I could get
> on a short term.
>
> I use it with Linux. Actually, I did not more than a few tests. But I
> know it works and I verified it with the XP install that came with the
> notebook. I just had to install the PCI-card drivers there.
>
> (general remark) Note that this kind of use of mini-pci modules is all
> on your own risk and responsibility. Maybe I better had not told this on
> LKML. But now that has happened, I advise people to think twice before
> doing it and ask me for details in private if they feel uncertain about it.

Yep I was just gonna ask you for pictures (photos) showing all
connectors and stuff so I know how it will fit into my acer laptop :)

--
Christan Axelsson
[email protected]


2003-08-23 17:00:01

by Mr. James W. Laferriere

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: Current status of Intel PRO/Wireless 2100

Hello Bas ,

On Fri, 22 Aug 2003, Bas Mevissen wrote:
> Mr. James W. Laferriere wrote:
> > Hello Bas , Do you (or anyone else) know which of the 'PCI' based
> > cards are use the 'mini-pci' cards on a bridge card ?
> Probably all PCI-cards that have a huge metal casing. PCI WLAN cards are
> not so common (desktop and wireless is a bit silly :-))and hence the
> development costs for a "real" PCI WLAN card might be too high compared
> to the extra cost of using a Mini-PCI and a bridge. Actually, "bridge"
> is too much honour for the remaining card. Slot converter is more
> appropriate.
There are also the pci-[cardbus|pcmcia] devices . And in most of
the usual closeup's you get of those things the picture is so
smeared that there is very little way to tell the differances
from looking at those pictures . I did find Jean Tourrilhes site
& documents on wireless for linux & am now using the information
there to try to find 802.11g mini-pci versions that are supported
by linux .

> > I'd really like more of a selection to choose from than just
> > Netgear . The Netgear card you spoke of below religously doesn't
> > mention Linux in it's support sections . But , (hopefully) it
> > appears that you are using under linux , correct ? Tia , JimL
> We all like that. Actually, I wanted to have an 802.11a/b/g from a
> supplier that has real open source drivers. But it was all I could get
> on a short term.
> I use it with Linux. Actually, I did not more than a few tests. But I
> know it works and I verified it with the XP install that came with the
> notebook. I just had to install the PCI-card drivers there.
Thank you for the confirmation . If I should decide to pick up
the netgear card I'll report back with success &/or horror
reports .

> (general remark) Note that this kind of use of mini-pci modules is all
> on your own risk and responsibility. Maybe I better had not told this on
> LKML. But now that has happened, I advise people to think twice before
> doing it and ask me for details in private if they feel uncertain about it.
I fully understand , It is not supported by the laptop
manufacturers & if it breaks you tell me I get to keep all the
pieces ;-) . Tnx Again , JimL
--
+------------------------------------------------------------------+
| James W. Laferriere | System Techniques | Give me VMS |
| Network Engineer | P.O. Box 854 | Give me Linux |
| [email protected] | Coudersport PA 16915 | only on AXP |
+------------------------------------------------------------------+