I'm a somewhat of a newbie to Linux. So far I have been impressed with the information that I have been able to readily find to get things done in Linux amongst all the reference books, on-line tutorials, and various Linux communities. However wireless in Linux has been a different story.
A few weeks ago I was asked to provide wireless functionality for an embedded system. A simple USB wireless adapter to connect to an access point was all. I thought it shouldn't be too much of a challenge. However adding wireless capability has truly been a formidable challenge. I'm still not there yet. I'm staring right now at the latest wpa_supplicant readme with all the choices that I need to make. I'll be lucky if it works. It's really been a piece-meal effort so far.
The only information I can find is very limited to it's context and is geared to individuals who have intimate knowledge of Linux wireless. How does one get up to speed with wireless-linux with the apparent lack of good general information regarding what's needed in a wireless linux kernel?
Are there any reference books, tutorials, howto's, wireless enabled kernels...anything that someone can point me to that would help?
/carl
On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 2:05 PM, Heyendal, Carl
<[email protected]> wrote:
>
> I'm a somewhat of a newbie to Linux. So far I have been impressed with the information that I have been able to readily find to get things done in Linux amongst all the reference books, on-line tutorials, and various Linux communities. However wireless in Linux has been a different story.
>
> A few weeks ago I was asked to provide wireless functionality for an embedded system. A simple USB wireless adapter to connect to an access point was all. I thought it shouldn't be too much of a challenge. However adding wireless capability has truly been a formidable challenge. I'm still not there yet. I'm staring right now at the latest wpa_supplicant readme with all the choices that I need to make. I'll be lucky if it works. It's really been a piece-meal effort so far.
>
> The only information I can find is very limited to it's context and is geared to individuals who have intimate knowledge of Linux wireless. How does one get up to speed with wireless-linux with the apparent lack of good general information regarding what's needed in a wireless linux kernel?
>
> Are there any reference books, tutorials, howto's, wireless enabled kernels...anything that someone can point me to that would help?
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Linux+wireless
Luis
> I'm staring right now at the latest wpa_supplicant readme with all the
> choices that I need to make. I'll be lucky if it works. It's really been
> a piece-meal effort so far.
This has nothing to do with being a newby. Newbies use distributions. Go and
install Fedora, SuSE, Ubuntu, whatever. They compiled wpa_supplicant for
you.
Okay, I see that you work in the embedded space. Maybe I can point to to
bitbake and http://www.openembedded.org? Here there's a recipe that cross-compiles
wpa_supplicant for you. While OpenEmbedded itself isn't something for
newbies, using it takes away some of the decision-making ("Which config
option do I need?" from you.
But I wouldn't call any embedded work a work for a newbie ...
> Are there any reference books, tutorials, howto's, wireless enabled
> kernels...anything that someone can point me to that would help?
http://wireless.kernel.org
For wpa_supplicant questions, even when it comes to compiling, try the
hostap mailing list. This list covers both hostap and wpa_supplicant.
BTW, I agree that queries like "Linux wireless introduction" or "Linux
wireless HOWTO" will reveal lot's of outdated stuff.
--
http://www.holgerschurig.de
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Luis R. Rodriguez [mailto:[email protected]]
> Sent: Tuesday, November 30, 2010 5:16 PM
> To: Heyendal, Carl
> Cc: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: wireless in linux
>
> On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 2:05 PM, Heyendal, Carl
> <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> > I'm a somewhat of a newbie to Linux. So far I have been
> impressed with the information that I have been able to
> readily find to get things done in Linux amongst all the
> reference books, on-line tutorials, and various Linux
> communities. However wireless in Linux has been a different story.
> >
> > A few weeks ago I was asked to provide wireless
> functionality for an embedded system. A simple USB wireless
> adapter to connect to an access point was all. I thought it
> shouldn't be too much of a challenge. However adding wireless
> capability has truly been a formidable challenge. I'm still
> not there yet. I'm staring right now at the latest
> wpa_supplicant readme with all the choices that I need to
> make. I'll be lucky if it works. It's really been a
> piece-meal effort so far.
> >
> > The only information I can find is very limited to it's
> context and is geared to individuals who have intimate
> knowledge of Linux wireless. How does one get up to speed
> with wireless-linux with the apparent lack of good general
> information regarding what's needed in a wireless linux kernel?
> >
> > Are there any reference books, tutorials, howto's, wireless
> enabled kernels...anything that someone can point me to that
> would help?
>
> http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Linux+wireless
>
> Luis
>
>
Yes. Ha-ha. To bad there's nothing good out there for newbs.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Luis R. Rodriguez [mailto:[email protected]]
> Sent: Tuesday, November 30, 2010 5:16 PM
> To: Heyendal, Carl
> Cc: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: wireless in linux
>
> On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 2:05 PM, Heyendal, Carl
> <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> > I'm a somewhat of a newbie to Linux. So far I have been
> impressed with the information that I have been able to
> readily find to get things done in Linux amongst all the
> reference books, on-line tutorials, and various Linux
> communities. However wireless in Linux has been a different story.
> >
> > A few weeks ago I was asked to provide wireless
> functionality for an embedded system. A simple USB wireless
> adapter to connect to an access point was all. I thought it
> shouldn't be too much of a challenge. However adding wireless
> capability has truly been a formidable challenge. I'm still
> not there yet. I'm staring right now at the latest
> wpa_supplicant readme with all the choices that I need to
> make. I'll be lucky if it works. It's really been a
> piece-meal effort so far.
> >
> > The only information I can find is very limited to it's
> context and is geared to individuals who have intimate
> knowledge of Linux wireless. How does one get up to speed
> with wireless-linux with the apparent lack of good general
> information regarding what's needed in a wireless linux kernel?
> >
> > Are there any reference books, tutorials, howto's, wireless
> enabled kernels...anything that someone can point me to that
> would help?
>
> http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Linux+wireless
>
> Luis
>
>
This is more what I was complaining about.
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=%22linux%20wireless%20for%20newbs%22
;-)
On 11/30/2010 04:16 PM, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:
> http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Linux+wireless
Good one.
I have a separate question about compat-wireless. I need to backport to kernel
2.6.21. I have fixed most of the problems, but I'm stuck on the case where
something has been added to a struct since that kernel. I looked at all the
compat-XXX patches, but I don't see what has been done previously. Is that
written up somewhere, or is there a prescription?
Thanks,
Larry