[wellylug] Modem upload problems - solved

[michael at diaspora.gen.nz]

Richard Hector writes:
>Never mind. I've had a look on the DSE site, and assuming you have
>XH8225, it is an atheros based card with madwifi drivers, which due to
>FCC regulations (and possibly similar ones here) have a binary-only
>module, which taints the kernel.
>
>So for those of us who don't like to run non-free code (and especially
>non-free kernel code), it isn't an option.

I like the ralink devices -- eg the Asus WL107g that I'm typing this
through.  They seem competitively priced (mine was $64 off TradeMe,
but I saw similar prices elsewhere).

This page is worth looking at if you're wanting to buy 802.11g
equipment:

    http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/net/wireless/cards.html

It's interesting to note that the Atheros chipset based devices are
likely to be fully reverse engineered soon, according to that page.

(I bought a Prism54 based device the first time -- unfortunately, the
manufacturer had silently changed from the FullMAC chipset to the SoftMAC,
without changing FCC ID or model number.  As a result, instead of a nice
free reverse engineered driver, I had to use ndiswrapper.)

    -- michael.