Duke of URL: Linux and Wireless LAN Overview Part 2: The Devices

[ Thanks to Patrick
Mullen for this link. ]

” The Linux installation wasn’t as simple, as most Linux users
realize. First off I checked my version of PCMCIA-CS and what cards
it supported. My version didn’t support either of the cards. I then
downloaded the most current version of PCMCIA-CS and installed. It
supposedly had limited support for the SMC card, but no go. I then
moved onto the Linux-WLAN Project which is supposed to have
compatibility for the Prism2 chipset which both cards are based on.
However, installation of the Linux-WLAN software is far from
smooth. First you need the compiled source code for your kernel AND
PCMCIA-CS. So for those of you with generic kernels running on RPM
based distributions (RedHat, Mandrake, SuSE, etc.), you have a lot
of work ahead of you. First, you need to compile a custom kernel
and install it. Second, and much more difficult, is custom
compiling your current version of PCMCIA-CS. You first have to do
an “rpm -rebuild” to custom compile PCMCIA-CS, even though the
-rebuild flag gives you a new rpm to install, it deletes all the
“work” source. After you install the new custom compiled PCMCIA-CS
you need to ‘rpm -recompile’ only then do you have the build source
left available to you. Even after all that, the usage of the card
is tricky at best. If you have the card in during boot, it will
always fail. If you insert the card after boot it will fail about
half of the time. The other half of the time it works as well in
Linux as it did in Windows.”

Complete Story