Date: Mon, 9 Sep 2002 20:54:09 -0400 From: Hudson Lee <hudlee@vineyard.net> To: freebsd-mobile@freebsd.org Subject: are zcomax 802.11b wireless cards supported in freebsd? Message-ID: <20020910005409.GA348@harlem>
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Like many others I want to use a freebsd box as a "wireless access point." More specificlly I want to use bss (infrastructure) mode with hostap and ethernet bridging. I am looking for the right 802.11b card to buy. Actually I need two, a PCMCIA or mini-pci card for my laptop and a pci card for for my desktop. I need both cards to work with hostap, bridging, and the bsd-airtools. I have done a bit of research and am pretty sure I can only do these things with a prism chipset. I looked around and found an ideal (on paper not counting price) line of prism cards. The zcomax cards use the prism2 or prism2.5 chipsets and I can get one with 100mw of power and a detachable built in antenna with an external RP-MMCX jack underneath. The question is of course, do they work in freebsd? I have looked all over and can't find any sucess stories or horrer stories about using these cards with freebsd. In fact when I search freebsd.org using google for zcomax the results come up blank. Does any one use these any of these cards in freebsd? Do any of these zcomax cards work with hostap, bridging, and bsd-airtools? PCMCIA Cards: zcomax XI-300 - Prism2 with detachable antenna zcomax XI-300B - Prism2 with integrated antenna zcomax XI-305B - Not sure about the chipset, but has an integrated antenna zcomax XI-325 - Prism2.5 with detachable antenna 30mw (15dbm) power zcomax XI-325H - Prism2.5 with detachable antenna 100mw (20dbm) power zcomax XI-325HP - Prism2.5 with detachable antenna 200mw (23dbm) power PCI Options: XI-600-XA - zcomax's pci-pcmcia adapter XI-626 - A pci card with RP-SMA connectors but only 30mw power :-( XI-625 - The mini-pci card (I need to find out more about this card) zcomax has two slightly different websites: http://www.zcomax.com/ http://www.zcomax.co.uk/ Some interesting notes about these cards n stuff: On the .com website the pcmcia XI-300 is the only picture that you can really click on for more information. On the page that comes up freebsd is actually listed as a supported os. See http://www.zcomax.com/htm/xi300.htm Of course when I called and asked about freebsd (and the guy I got was smart) the answer was "I don't know but people use them on linux." I don't like zcomax's websites. There are bad links and conflicting information n stuff. They don't have a good way to order online and I had to call to get prices which I have since forgotten. If anyone knows a good place to buy these cards please tell me. I think there expensive but they look so nice if only they work well in freebsd. I would also like to know if any one uses a card (like the XI-325H) on a desktop with a pci-pcmcia adapter. If anyone has this setup do you use zcomax's XI-600-XA adapter or some other pci-pcmcia adapter? The XI-325HP might not really exist and I forget the magic fcc legal numbers so I'm not sure of the legalities if you plugged in it into a directional antenna with 24 dbi gain. Does anyone use cards with this much raw transmitting power? As a note to a reader who is actually reading this entire email these zcomax cards seem obscure to me so if you want a cheaper/safer "freebsd access point" setup on a desktop machine, I have personally seen one work with a DLink DWL-520 pci card. There were some odd error messages on the console, but hostap and the rest of the network seem to work fine. I have seen this card at circuit city for $100 and as low as $60 online. You also don't have to deal with pci-pcmcia adapters. I am saying all this because this is one answer to the what cheap nic to use for a freebsd "access point" question. (If any one has had really painful experences with the DWL-520 card please yell at me real loud, also note that the setup I have seen is not under heavy load) It just might not be the ideal answer, thats what I hope the zcomax cards might be (well without the cheap part)... if they work of course. BTW once I get a wireless card for my laptop if any of you developers are interested I am perfectly willing to usmail/ups/fedex you that mini-pci cisco aironet 350 card which doesn't work with the an driver. Thanks for your time. And remember I am only so anal about product research because I am soon to become a poor college student and I have already wasted money on cisco cards which don't do what I want. -hudlee To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-mobile" in the body of the message
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