Over the last month or so, I have been experimenting with various 802.11b wireless hardware devices and options. For various reasons, I just plainly got the bug to try out wifi. So far, because I am not lucky enough to currently have a job that would give me a centrino laptop to use, but have rather gone the less traveled route of trying to use old Pentium 90 laptops running linux tempered with a newly cosidered and purchased Sharp Zaurus PDA (which also runs linux, of course) which seems to like to eat CFio cards, I have only had fleeting glimpses of the wonder of wireless.
The experience with both machines has been very educational, as I have tinkered with them an hour here and an hour there over the previous weeks. I knew better than to run out and grab the nearest wireless pc card and expect it to work out of the box with my laptop. For one thing, I was almost positive the kernel I was running didn’t even know what wireless was. I was smart enough to get a 16bit card, even though 90 percent of the pc cards sold for wireless these days seem to be 32bit cardbus, which is not surprising since the price leader is 802.11g and I don’t think isa could handle g speeds very well. My first forays into wireless as far as brand was concerned had more to do with who had a 16bit pcmcia card on the shelf when I walked in the store. In hindsight, probably not the least frustrating way to go about such a venture.
I ended up getting a D-Link pcmcia card and a D-Link PCI card to run in a Windows XP machine for some ad-hoc experiments. I figured I might lessen some of the frustration by the fact that XP has some, on the surface at least, decent support for wireless cards built in. In that supposition, I was correct at least, hence the XP was relatively simple, as expected. But, it turns out the pcmcia card I chose has had the dreaded chipset switcheroo performed by the manufacturer at least twice with the same model number, so I had a heck of a time at first even figuring out for sure which chipset I had. Turns out it was prism2 variant, but, of course, too new for wlan-linux-ng to support.
In the meantime, since going the ultra-cheap route was not resulting in any satisfaction, I decided to take the plunge and jump on a $300 (thank you tax refund) Sharp Zaurus 5600. What a nice machine! (gushing about this device in specific detail will mostly be left for another day) I did not realize that it would be impossible to find a CFio wireless card in a brick and mortar store, but found a great deal online and went with D-Link again. My luck with D-Link being so mixed in that their card prices were low but their consistency in labeling even lower, I am since hoping that the whole attachment to a D-Link chain of cards was not a mistake on my part, since either something is wrong with that particular CF card or is wrong with the CF slot on my Zaurus since I had to hold the card in place at an odd angle of pressure in order for it even to be recognized and keep assocation with either a card in ad-hoc mode or an access point. This, of course, after a few days of it working perfectly.
The poor device is on the way back to Sharp to be looked at. As much as I like the Zaurus itself, I was not too happy with their hardware support. I felt like I was being accused of not knowing how to use a CF slot, but whatever. I will reserve judgement, for now. Hopefully they will be able to remove the huge piece of dust which has been backlit in annoying glory while they are looking at the thing. With my luck, it will come back with huge glowing dust bunnies running around under the touch screen tantalizingly just out of reach and certainly unwilling to hide like good dust bunnies should.
So, I am currently stuck in a wired world until my zaurus comes back. Woe is me. Somehow I shall survive. After a brief dalliance with a non-Dlink pcmcia card (a Belkin model which ALSO turned out to have chipset issues, plus a lack of desire to run in ad-hoc mode), I have returned everything I could for a refund and am realizing that the zaurus will make a perfect “laptop” for me. It is more than powerful enough in all the right ways. This would not work for everyone, since some like their big screen and their full size keyboard and the ability to play dvd’s or cd’s. I will surely be content with less as befits my nature.
Sometimes I wish I were still working a job where I was given a nice laptop to use, but all of this has made me take a deep breath and realize that the Zaurus would definitely make a perfect laptop replacement, especially when replacing one laced with so much frustration. I am definitely one to eke the last bit of use out of most of the hardware I own, but am beginning to learn when to call it quits. I already had an ir keyboard that turned out to work just fine (with the creative use of mirrors) and out of the box (sans wireless) the usb wired connectivity to the desktop and the network beyond is very nice. Being able to vncview the zaurus screen from any other computer is the clincher. Like I say, more detail on the Zaurus itself, once it gets back from its already too long trip to Romeoville, Illinois.
