[GLLUG] dwl-120 (wi-fi)

[Jeremy Bowers]

Wald wrote:
> At present time, I am facing some problem with the configuration of wi-fi 
> pc card (cardbus) called DWL-650. 

Which DWL-650? There are at least three distinct "DWL-650"'s. Only the 
oldest one works, IIRC; certainly the one I bought last week doesn't (at 
least on my Linux).

I've learned about this the hard way the past few days; I've been trying 
  to buy a wireless card that will work in Linux. I can't find one new. 
Every time I look a card up and find out that works in Linux, I go to 
buy it only to discover that the god damned card manufacturor has almost 
secretly changed the chipset the card uses to something else that 
doesn't work in Linux.

Anyone who knows where I can get a *real* wireless card for Linux please 
let me know. Be careful, I've tried both the DWL-650 and something from 
D-Link and they were both new chipsets, so even ones that used to work 
may not work if you bought the same model number today.

The latest DWL-650 IIRC uses the RealTek8180L chipset, which RealTek has 
sort of provided drivers for, but they're partially binary and that 
binary part didn't work for me; they compiled with gcc 3.2 and I have 
3.3. (Among other problems; there's about three reasons this driver 
doesn't work for me.)

Then again, you may not have the latest.

Have you ever had this card working in Linux before? If not I'd triple 
check the chipset before proceding; you may find it never will work.

Alternatively, try the DriverLoader from 
http://www.linuxant.com/company/ ; it's for-pay with a free trial and it 
teaches Linux to use Windows XP drivers. It almost, but not quite, works 
for my D-Link card; I can get Internet for 10-15 seconds but then it 
stops for some reason. (I've shut off ACPI and don't have APIC in the 
kernel at all so the FAQ and I are fresh out of ideas. And I've already 
burned enough time fighting that it's just going back to the store later 
today.)

Wireless in Linux is frustrating enough without the damned vendors 
selling three or four utterly different cards with the same name.