I have recently made the switch on one of my machines to linux, and would like to make the switch on my laptop, but this would mean getting wireless working on it. I dont currently have wireless installed on the machine, but I am planning to get it very soon.
Can someone advice me as to what type of pcmcia card i should get.

I have done some searching around, and there is various reviews of card saying that some work and others dont.
What i would like is a 802.11g card supporting 54Mb, which can also be set into monitor mode (or at least have support for programs such as kismet and airsnort).
The closest I have come to finding the correct card so far is the Netgear WG511, but i have since found out that only version 1 and 2 of the card are supported by the prism54 driver, and that all new version of the card isnt supported yet.

Does anyone have any experience of using a 54Mb card in linux with airsnort etc support.
Any comments would be much appreciated. Maybe this could be made into a help topic as well for other people looking 54Mb wireless support in linux.

Note - I have done a search and read all the other post, but most are having problems, or using the NdisWrapper which as far as i know doesnt have support for airsnort and simular apps. - please correct me if i am wrong.

what about getting an ethernet bridge rather than a card?

They don't ever need drivers to work.

not quite sure by what you mean by ethernet bridge, my understanding of them is for use within multi network environments, as a use to 'bridge' the connections together. How can this be used in a wireless situation?

You could always use NdisWrapper, it allows you to use Windows drivers on Linux, got my D-Link DWL610 card woring in no time on Ubuntu

btw, what distro are you using?

Ben

Well they do, but they can be used with a single device, then wirelessly connect onto an existing wireless network. It's bridging your local ethernet port to the wireless network. You don't have to change modes or anything.

Like a wireless xbox live kit, it uses an ethernet bridge, as does ps2.

They can be used without drivers on any device with an ethernet port.

Am using Ubuntu,
Have you been able to get your Dlink card with the ndiswrapper working with applications like kismet and airsnort etc? or is it incompatible with them? I have been told that you cant use ndiswrapper with those apps, please someone correct me if the new i have heard is wrong.





So let me get this right, i can use the Ethernet port on the laptop and plug in a wireless adapter to it? and it will 'bridge' itself as a wireless-ethernet port? or am i getting the wrong idea here?
Think it might be easier to get a pcmcia card and just plug it in.

1. Nice idea but can be very $$$$
2. Try ndiswrapper There a guide on the ubuntu website. There is also one on neowin but dosn't work with ubuntu. Basciallly you:
Download source from http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/
you extract it
you run the command 'make'
then you do 'sudo' (I think you use the user password)
then you do 'make install'
then you do 'ndiswrapper -i /path/to/windows/driver/inifile
then do 'ndiswrapper -l to make sure the driver got install
then do modprobe ndiswrapper
then do ndiswrapper -e
then use the network config tool included in ubuntu

Yes. it acts just the same as a wireless usb or pcmiaiaiama card.

But correct ^ they are about £30-£50.

It depends on what you might do in the future. As you could buy a switch for the ethernet bridge, and use multiple devices with it. If you ever have 2 or more PCs needing to go wireless (in the same room) then you could save money. and it's all ready to go, just plug and play extra devices.

thanks for the info about ndiswrapper, am going to investigate further about this and the cards that it supports. One problem though i found this on the kismet site:

Q: Will Kismet work with Linuxant or NDISwrapper drivers?
A: No. These wrappers use the Windows drivers, which don't support rfmon. Until there are native drivers with rfmon support, Kismet won't work with these cards.

have you been able to get the card working with it at all ?

I cant find any real info about airsnort and other about NDISwrapper support.
I would really like the be able to use these type of applications in linux, so am looking for a card that suports them.





thanks for the info, i will look into it as an option against the cards.

I have a pci wg311 card or something like that it by netgear and it works ndiswrapper is your best choice works with many many many cards

I have checked the wg311 and it is a pci card, only problem is that i need to have it for a laptop, and although there is a mini-pci, it is currently been used for another device. so i need a card based option (pcmcia/cardbus).

All I done was in Ubuntu was.....



Then go into the network config, and put in your SSID and key etc

Ben

does you laptop not have a card? Try ndiswrapper with the windows driver for you current card (in laptop I presume)

@vassie ubuntu might come with ndiswrapper. I don't use ubuntu but the other commands were just to compile it and ndiswrapper -l is nice it lets you know if the driver is installed and if the card is detected in the system

nope i dont currently have a card for the laptop, thats what i want to know about. I need to know which is the best card for linux which will support 54Mb and have support for kismet/airsnort etc.
Basically i want a 54Mb card with scanning ability. At the moment i havent been able to find one which has full support, some are supported in linux via various options prism54, ndiswrapper, madwifi etc but only a few of the 54Mb cards are able to do the scanning in linux with programs such as airsnort and kismet.
Can anyone recommend me a card?

Then if you willing to spend about $150-$200 on ethernet bridge get that, but I would ask around irc channels, etc... because there not very good linux support, but take a look here http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/phpwiki...7e1ad1ae570ce91
that a list of all known support card in ndiswrapper also do some googling and make sure other ppl got that card to work with ndiswrapper