Wireless Dial-Up Network

I have a wired network setup in my home where I have multiple computers that
use my Linux box as a router/gateway/nat/younameit server. My clients are
able to initiate a pppd session using dwun and everything works pretty
well.

My wife would like to add her laptop to the network, and the only feasible
way of doing this would be to let her computer talk to the server
wirelessly. I'm not too familiar with wireless hardware, so if anyone
could please tell me whether my proposed configuration would work, I would
greatly appreciate it.

Basically, since I'm not using broadband I can't use any of the wireless
routers that are easily available. My Linux server is already a
router/firewall/everything, so basically all I think I need to do is plug
one wireless network adapter (nic) into the Linux server and another into
my wife's laptop. I could then have them talk to each other in ad-hoc
mode. Is this correct? Am I missing something?

Thanks in advance for any help!

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Tom Purl
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hpsux wrote:

> My wife would like to add her laptop to the network, and the only feasible
> way of doing this would be to let her computer talk to the server
> wirelessly. I'm not too familiar with wireless hardware, so if anyone
> could please tell me whether my proposed configuration would work, I would
> greatly appreciate it.
>
> Basically, since I'm not using broadband I can't use any of the wireless
> routers that are easily available. My Linux server is already a
> router/firewall/everything, so basically all I think I need to do is plug
> one wireless network adapter (nic) into the Linux server and another into
> my wife's laptop. I could then have them talk to each other in ad-hoc
> mode. Is this correct? Am I missing something?

That's what I do.
It's moderately difficult to find a PCI WiFi card that works with Linux,
I think.
I'm using an Avaya/Lucent/Orinoco card -- this is a PCI-to-PCMCIA converter
with an Orinoco Gold card in it --
and this works fine with the standard orinoco_cs kernel WiFi module.
(I also have an Orinoco Gold cards in my laptop,
and my wife has one in hers too.)

--
Timothy Murphy
e-mail: (E-Mail Removed)
tel: +353-86-233 6090
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland

Timothy Murphy <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> It's moderately difficult to find a PCI WiFi card that works with Linux,
> I think.

Yes, you're right. I'm using an SMC one, which comes with a partially
binary only driver. The driver is the "8211.o".

00:12.0 Network controller: Bridgecom, Inc: Unknown device 8201 (rev 11)

> I'm using an Avaya/Lucent/Orinoco card -- this is a PCI-to-PCMCIA converter
> with an Orinoco Gold card in it --
> and this works fine with the standard orinoco_cs kernel WiFi module.
> (I also have an Orinoco Gold cards in my laptop,

I also do that, but I have had 2 converters and only been able to get
one to work. I suspect the other was simply DOA per se.

Peter

hpsux wrote:

> My wife would like to add her laptop to the network, and the only feasible
> way of doing this would be to let her computer talk to the server
> wirelessly. I'm not too familiar with wireless hardware, so if anyone
> could please tell me whether my proposed configuration would work, I would
> greatly appreciate it

I recently set up wireless access to my home netwokr. I bought a cheap
wireless router, which I'm using, instead of buying a PCI wireless card.
While I'm still evaluating the best set up, it seems to work quite well.
For example, right now, as I write this note, I'm sitting on my balcony,
without any wires or cables connecting to my notebook. I connected to my
main system via ssh and running Knode remotely. While not quite a snappy
as sitting in front of my desktop, it works well. My notebook is an IBM
Thinkpad R30, with a built in wireless adapter.

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