Wireless Networking Basics - "Installing the Software
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Installing the drivers and supporting software is a bit more confusing, but here's the order to do it in:
Install the driver.
Install the support software.
Configure the support software.
Read the instructions provided. They will save you some time and some cursing, especially on Linux.
Windows and Wireless Drivers
When you put the install CD in, the autorun program for the Linksys cards automatically starts the support software install, not the driver install. After I installed the support software, it complained that it couldn't find my card - and rightfully so - because Windows had no driver for it.
Windows 98/2000/Millennium Edition/XP will pick up that there is new hardware in the system. When it asks for a driver, put in the CD, and have Windows search the CD for the driver. Make sure that you have your Windows CD with you, especially if you're a Windows 98 user. Every time I update my driver in Windows 98, Windows asks me for it without fail. After you install the driver, however, you don't have an IP address. That's normal, and don't worry.
Installing the support software is also very easy. Its just like any other program.
Linux and Wireless??
If you use Linux, like me, do lots of research before buying a network card. I didn't do enough, and found that most chipset makers are either unwilling or unable to develop drivers or help develop drivers for wireless cards. Another option is to buy a license from Linuxant to use their DriverLoader software. DriverLoader is a bit of a pain to install, but it works beautifully with my WPC54G, Red Hat Linux 8, and my old ThinkPad 380. What is nice about DriverLoader is that it gives you a nice web based configuration program that's really easy to use. The interesting part of it is that it uses Windows XP drivers, so don't play frisbee with the install CD that came with your card, or at least wait till you have it working.
Remote Linux users: Sorry, I couldn't figure out how to get this to work in Lynx. I was annoyed by that, since I do most of my Linux work over an SSH shell. Because the screen wasn't working well, I had to resort to using TightVNC.
You will also need the wireless-tools package, which was bundled with Red Hat 8 and most recent distributions. Red Hat users can get a wireless-tools package from the Red Hat Network, or by typing up2date wireless-tools at a root prompt. Debian users can try apt-get wireless-tools, and Gentoo users (the true speed demon Linux users) can try emerge wireless-tools. It should take about 10 minutes to compile since its really small.
If you are using Linux, you actually want older hardware. Linux users end up hacking at the chipset or the device by reverse engineering, so the longer the device has been out, the better chance you have in finding a driver for it. Here is a list of known cards and their chipsets. The linux-wlan project is a good place to start looking for Linux drivers.
Luckily, my SMC 2402W has a Texas Instruments acx100 chip in it, so I was able to download it using the instructions at the acx100 driver website.
To check if your Linux box has the driver installed properly, run iwconfig at a shell like this on my Red Hat 9 box:
Write down the name of the device that actually has wireless extensions (wlan0 in this case). eth0 is your first wired ethernet device and lo is the loopback device. DriverLoader plays games with you here - on my Red Hat 8 box with DriverLoader, the wireless device is eth1.
Next: Setting up the Support Software >>
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