Wireless USB stick that works with FC13 without RPMfusion

[BStsetson]

1. Are there any USB wireless (802.11) sticks that work with the standard FC13 load?
The Rosewill card almost works with the DVD load but breaks with the first updates.

After playing with the rt2870 and losing every time, I would just like to get a usb wireless
adapter that works.

2. If there is no such animal, is there a PCI wireless card that works without a major
Kabuki dance prior to setup?

3. Finally, if I do not want to me in the world of GUIs and want a bare machine to run
wireless, is there some place to find how to set up a wireless network with WPA2 using
the /etc/init.d/network, instead of NetworkManager.

like step one: put in the card/stick
step two: # wpa_passphrase ap "magic phrase" >> /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
step three: at the following lines to /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
so that WPA2 works
step four: iwconfig wlanX ...
step five: ifconfig wlanX XXX.BBB.CCC.DDD netmask blah
(or what to put in the /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-wlanX file)


Thanks ever so much. I want a working wireless network so I can do other networking
things.

Sorry for my knuckle-headedness. I searched and could not find any assistance.
Perhaps I a searching dumbdumb on top of being a knuckle-head.

[stoat]

Originally Posted by BStsetson

1. Are there any USB wireless (802.11) sticks that work with the standard FC13 load?

There are USB wireless cards that work with driver modules included with the kernel and use firmware included as rpm packages in Fedora 13. A good place to study currently available Linux drivers is linuxwireless.org. See the USB devices listed there. Once you've found some candidates, then see if your Fedora kernel has the driver module...

modprobe --list | grep wireless

And if linuxwireless.org says it needs firmware (probably so), then you can check for that, too...

yum list | grep firmware

Or browse for a firmware package in the download server directories or the installation DVD. The hardest part about all of this IMO is making sure the model card that you decide on will have the expected chipset. Manufacturers sometimes change chipsets during the production life of a wireless card. Some are well known to do that. And when a model is known to exist in multiple versions with different chipsets, it's often difficult to impossible to tell what version you would be ordering from an online store. It may not be any easier in a real store. Fortunately, most of these cards are inexpensive, so not a lot is at stake.

Anyway, that is basically what I did when I decided on the ZyXEL G-202 USB wireless adapter. The zd1211rw module gets loaded anytime that the device gets plugged in. All I had to do was install zd1211-firmware.noarch. It works fine. It connects and stays connected. The signal strengths reported are slightly less than what is reported when I'm using my Broadcom BCM4306 cards in the same spots and with the same router. But I don't notice any practical difference.

WARNING: I mentioned my experience finding, setting up, and using the ZyXEL G-202 as an example only. I am making no promises regarding the performance of the ZyXEL G-202 and your satisfaction with it. There are other devices that use that same ZyDAS driver and firmware, and there are other built-in drivers and firmware in Fedora that can be used just as easily by many other USB devices.

Originally Posted by BStsetson

2. If there is no such animal, is there a PCI wireless card that works without a major
Kabuki dance prior to setup?

There are PCI wireless devices that likewise use built-in driver modules and firmware in Fedora. You can find out about those in the same way at linuxwireless.org. See the PCI and PCMCIA device lists.

Originally Posted by BStsetson

3. Finally, if I do not want to me in the world of GUIs and want a bare machine to run
wireless, is there some place to find how to set up a wireless network with WPA2 using
the /etc/init.d/network, instead of NetworkManager.

Before I ever heard of NetworkManager, I used terminal commands and scripts to manage these same Broadcom wireless cards. Basically, I used the utility /usr/sbin/wpa_passphrase to generate a wpa_supplicant.conf file. And as you said, I did add the lines proto=WPA and key_mgmt=WPA-PSK to it. Then I could get things going with these commands in a terminal or script...

/usr/sbin/wpa_supplicant -Bw -Dwext -iwlan0 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
/sbin/ifconfig wlan0 up 
/sbin/dhclient wlan0

I did business that way for a long time. I don't really miss it though.

[assen]

Hi,

Regarding console networking, NetworkManager now has a set of command-line tools which do the same things as the GUI.

Regarding USB stick, here is what I have:

Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0b05:171d ASUSTek Computer, Inc.

Works out of the box. It has Realtek 8187 inside.

WWell,

[rockdoctor]

Bus 002 Device 002: ID 050d:705c Belkin Components Zydas ZD1211B [F5D7050 Wireless G Adapter v4000]

Kernel module: zd1211rw

Firmware (from Fedora repo): zd1211-firmware-1.4-4.fc13.noarch

I didn't have much luck with the CLI tool for NetworkManager, but that was some time ago. Just change the networking link in rc.x.d (presumably x=3 if you don't want the gui) to point to /etc/init.d/network instead of /etc/init.d/NetworkManager. For my (open) wireless system, I do the following (as root):

/etc/init.d/NetworkManager stop # stop NetworkManager if it's running
/etc/init.d/network start # bring up the networking
iwconfig wlan0 essid <my-network's-essid> # select the network to which we'll connect
dhclient wlan0 # connect

For wpa encryption, you'll need to configure and start wpa_supplicant first

[stoat]

Originally Posted by rockdoctor

Bus 002 Device 002: ID 050d:705c Belkin Components Zydas ZD1211B [F5D7050 Wireless G Adapter v4000]

Kernel module: zd1211rw

Firmware (from Fedora repo): zd1211-firmware-1.4-4.fc13.noarch

I'm glad that you mentioned this one. That Belkin F5D7050 is an example of what I meant above by wireless adapters that have been produced in multiple versions with more than one chipset. I've read things about the F5D7050's various versions using chipsets by Ralink, Broadcom, ZyDAS, maybe more. I don't own one, and I only follow it via occasional threads about it here. Most of the time, it can be made to work regardless of the version. But not all of them are capable of "just working" like BStsetson wants. Your version with the ZyDAS chipset certainly can. The problem that I had with this one while shopping for a USB card was how to know or be sure what version I would be buying. I had firmly decided on buying a wireless card with that ZyDAS chipset. I couldn't figure it out or be sure with the F5D7050, so I moved on and ended up with the ZyXEL card.

[robert-e]

Just a note..IIRC, ZyDAS was aquired by Atheros a couple of years ago. I used to follow the open-source development of the ZD1211 until it seemed to stall-out. If that is the case, it may be difficult to find the 1211 chipsets in a usb format these days.

Regards,
Bob