Date: Thu, 25 Jul 2002 23:11:57 -0600 (MDT) From: "M. Warner Losh" <imp@bsdimp.com> To: Gerhard.Sittig@gmx.net Cc: freebsd-mobile@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: PCI -> PCMCIA Adapter woes. Message-ID: <20020725.231157.73515369.imp@bsdimp.com> In-Reply-To: <20020725220029.A1494@shell.gsinet.sittig.org> References: <20020723194554.I32012-100000@plum.flirble.org> <20020725220029.A1494@shell.gsinet.sittig.org>
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In message: <20020725220029.A1494@shell.gsinet.sittig.org>
Gerhard Sittig <Gerhard.Sittig@gmx.net> writes:
: What lately bothered me: Is the PCI->PCMCIA bridge general enough
: a functionality that one can for instance put WLAN cards of one
: brand into PCI adapters of another brand? Do these adapters offer
: "a real PCMCIA slot" or do they implement some PCMCIA functionality
: already which reduces the variety of PCMCIA cards acceptable to
: plug into?
Yes. Maybe. If it is a REAL bridge, then you can certainly do that.
The TI 1225 and 1420 based cards from lucent are one example of one
that will work. The Ricoh 5C475 that DLINK produced for a while is
another. The PLX versions, however, do not. They will generally work
with only one kind of card. However "one kind" here is fairly
liberal. anything that looks like a card supported by the wi driver
is likely to work, modulo voltage issues (some PLX adapters are 5.0
volt only, some are 3.3V only, some do both (those are rare however)).
: I'm somewhat puzzled by some vendors' claims that their PCI adaptors
: ("mere" adapters without the actual WLAN card which is to be plugged
: in additionally) have some parameters like a bandwidth of 11Mbit/s,
: a working range(term?) of some 50 meters, etc. Aren't these parameters
: associated with the actual WLAN functionality which comes in form of
: additional PCMCIA cards and which I would not expect to live in a PCI
: adaptor? Is this just marketing blurb / a brain fart (assuming that
: the customer will combine the adapter with a certain PCMCIA card of
: the same vendor)?
Typical marketing-ese.
: And is there some software support needed which is not yet there in
: FreeBSD or can wi(4) and friends already cope with the system when
: they find a say Netgear PCI bridge with a D-Link WLAN card in it?
Actually, that might work. The PLX based bridges are most likely to
fail.
Warner
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