[rescue] Solaris WAVElan/Orinoco support

[Brian Hechinger]

On Thu, Jan 31, 2002 at 04:14:49PM -0500, Al Potter wrote:
> 
> A couple of pointers:

pointers are good.

> - If you're going to layer a VPN on top of the WEP security, are not 
> concerned about the security at all, or are confident that the IEEE is going 
> to issue an enhancement to the 802.11 spec which offers a fix for the legacy 
> equipment, then don't waste money on the "gold" card.  The silvers are 
> around for ~$50...

my closest neighbors are a horse farm, and i don't think they are close enough
to be able to pick up a signal without a yagi.  security isn't a problem when
you live in the middle of NOWHERE.  although the one exchange guy from work
said he would sit in his car using his laptop in my driveway to leech my
bandwidth so he wouldn't have to stay at work late to get good bandwidth.  i
told him he could sit on the front porch if he wanted to. :)

> - Orinoco makes an omni that hooks up directly, cost is around $75-80 IIRC.  
> Almost any other solution is going to require an adaptor pigtail for the 
> connector, which will set you back at least $20 on top of the antenna.  Go 
> with the Orinoco.

ok, so all Orinoco i can do this for around $150, not too shabby.  anyone have
any recommendations for 802.11b wireless cards for a win2000 box?  i'm not
stuck to the wavelan/orinoco thing there.

> - Access points are under $200 new, and can be had on ebay cheaper.  I am 
> not aware of any free access point software (other than the project to blow 
> linux-based firmware into SMC/Addtran APs).  You can do a small network in 
> ad-hoc mode, but it does not scale, will almost always dictate putting te 
> wireless on its own subnet, etc.

someone explain ad hoc to me.  why can't i use "proper base station mode" in a
machine since all these access points are is firmware with an antenna and a
wireless PCMCIA card in them.  i don't see what's holding me back.

i could get an access point, but that has less geek points than having my
access point as my Solaris based Ultra1 firewall. :)

-brian