[Wirelessdriver-support] Re: PowerBook G4 15"/OS X 10.3.2/Proxim Orinoco Silver 802.11b/g

[Robert F. <rl...@ea...>]

> From: Amanda Walker <am...@al...>
> Date: Sun, 21 Dec 2003 17:17:55 -0500
> To: wir...@li...
> Subject: [Wirelessdriver-support] Re: PowerBook G4 15"/OS X 
> 10.3.2/Proxim Orinoco Silver 802.11b/g (Barry Hawkins)
>

> The Orinoco combo cards are based on an Atheros chipset, not the
> Lucent/Agere/Intersil/whoever-owns-them-now chip set that the
> WirelessDriver and IOXperts driver support.  The b/g and a/b/g chipsets
> are completely different, and would require a new driver written
> completely from scratch.
>
> Because of the nature of the Broadcom and Atheros chipsets, it's highly
> unlikely that there will ever be a completely open source driver for
> them, though Sam Leffler has done a good job striking a deal with
> Atheros for his Linux and FreeBSD drivers (the module that talks to the
> hardware is distributed in binary only).  The big issue is that much,
> much more of the radio operation is exposed to the host, which makes
> the FCC very concerned about who should be able to twiddle the virtual
> knobs.  Operating at frequencies and power levels that you're not
> licensed for is a big no-no, especially since some of the allowable
> bands are surrounded by military-use bands :-).
>
>
> Amanda Walker
> (author of the IOXperts driver)

Okay, but which pc cards do support the g specification? I haven't seen 
any yet. I too have a useless-to-macs Proxim b/g card foolishly 
purchased.

Thx,
Bob Friede