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Current status of Intel PRO/Wireless 2100

DISCUSSION Christian Axelsson 4 participants 7 messages Aug 15, 2003 – Aug 23, 2003

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#0 lore raw

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]

#1 lore raw
Quoted 3 lines · Christian Axelsson

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.

Signature · 2 lines
Anders Karlsson <[email protected]>
Trudheim Technology Limited
#2 lore raw
Quoted 2 lines · Anders Karlsson

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

(mini-PCI WLAN cards in notebooks)

Quoted 8 lines

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 :-)

#3 lore raw

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

Quoted 24 lines · Bas Mevissen
Quoted 1 line · Anders Karlsson

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

(mini-PCI WLAN cards in notebooks)

Quoted 6 lines

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 :-)

Signature · 5 lines
       +------------------------------------------------------------------+
       | 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 |
       +------------------------------------------------------------------+
#4 lore raw
Quoted 3 lines · Mr. James W. Laferriere

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.

Quoted 5 lines

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.

#5 lore raw
Quoted 14 lines · Bas Mevissen
Quoted 3 lines · Mr. James W. Laferriere

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.

Quoted 5 lines

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

Quoted 5 lines

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 :)

Signature · 2 lines
Christan Axelsson
[email protected]
#6 lore raw
In reply to Bas Mevissen

Hello Bas ,

Quoted 9 lines · Bas Mevissen
Quoted 2 lines · Mr. James W. Laferriere

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 .

Quoted 10 lines
Quoted 4 lines

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 .

Quoted 4 lines

(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

Signature · 5 lines
       +------------------------------------------------------------------+
       | 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 |
       +------------------------------------------------------------------+