Anyone actually use a different base station using these drivers than Apple's base station? I wondered if I could save some money and get a base station by D-Link, Techworks, SMC, or Linksys. Please post which base station you are using.

[abrody]

Please ignore previous post, I didn't see it got posted, as it went to the next page!
Anyone use a base station other than Apple's base station, like the D-Link, Techworks, SMC, or Linksys? I'd like to be able to get the cheapest base station with the Wavelan card. I also saw that Maczone lists two wavelan cards, one purportedly for PC only, and one for both platforms. Will the PC only version work with the Mac?

PC only version: http://www.zones.com/cgi-bin/zones/zbs/scripts/product/product_summary_page.jsp?id=21 4930
Mac version: http://www.zones.com/cgi-bin/zones/zbs/scripts/product/product_summary_page.jsp?id=169 56

What's the difference between these two?

[ 07-06-2001: Message edited by: abrody ]

[rchang]

Originally posted by wclarkson:
<STRONG>I'm using a software base station how do I turn of WEP encryption???</STRONG>

Use the "Airport" application --- not "Airport Admin Utility" --- from OS9.1 on the machine that is running the software base station. There's a button for "Software Base Station..." at the bottom. Click on that. Then, there's a checkbox for "Enable encryption (using WEP)". Uncheck the box. Hopefully, that was your problem.

Richard Chang

[wclarkson]

I'll have to wait till I get home. Hopefully that was the problem. I'll get back to you all then.


Thanks again...

[me]

What are the plans for supporting other models of cards? I'm especially curious about the ones with only PC support ie Linksys and Netgear - they cost significantly less than the Wavelan cards yet use similar chipsets.

[lgerbarg]

Originally posted by macdesk:
<STRONG>SkyLINE 11MB VersionOneInfo:
INTERSIL
HFA3843x/EIII


I now get Ethernet Adaptor (en1) showing in my Network control panel. I don't know if the drivers actually work since I only have access to a closed/encrypted network right now.

I'll try it tonight with an open Airport base station and see if it works there.

Ryan</STRONG>

The Lucent cards are based on a Microcrontoller, as are the Intersils. The lucent cards use an entirely custom firmware though. Hence they are close, but not entirely compatible, debugging this one may be harder. I "think" the driver understands the differences well enough to make it work, I am just not entirely sure it is being setup right.

For various reasons it would be "cleaner" if I do not add any code to this driver at this time. Hopefully I should be able to get this resolved soon, but as some of you can imagine this is a rather touchy subject with some people.

Louis

[EasyKill]

Originally posted by lgerbarg:
<STRONG>The Lucent cards are based on a Microcrontoller, as are the Intersils. The lucent cards use an entirely custom firmware though. Hence they are close, but not entirely compatible, debugging this one may be harder. I "think" the driver understands the differences well enough to make it work, I am just not entirely sure it is being setup right.</STRONG>

Unfortunately I haven't had Ryan's luck with the Skyline version of the drivers. With the original Wavelan drivers installed, I got a solid green LNK light on the card, but no Ethernet Adapter option. Now with the Skyline drivers installed, I have the Ethernet Adapter option, but no connection (blinking green light, not picking up DHCP, etc.).

I'm using an Apple Airport BS with a Lombard. I don't *think* I have encryption turned on but haven't had a chance to check yet.

Anyone else besides Ryan have a Skyline success story?

[macdesk]

Originally posted by EasyKill:
<STRONG>

Unfortunately I haven't had Ryan's luck with the Skyline version of the drivers. With the original Wavelan drivers installed, I got a solid green LNK light on the card, but no Ethernet Adapter option. Now with the Skyline drivers installed, I have the Ethernet Adapter option, but no connection (blinking green light, not picking up DHCP, etc.).

I'm using an Apple Airport BS with a Lombard. I don't *think* I have encryption turned on but haven't had a chance to check yet.

Anyone else besides Ryan have a Skyline success story?</STRONG>

Connect to your base station using the AirPort Admin utility. Make sure that you have WEP disable and that you do not have "closed network" checked. If you have to make any changes, then save them and update any other AirPort clients to reflect them.

Hopefully, you do have your base station secured in some way.

I too had a green light when the drivers did not recognize the card, and I had a blinking light until I had the base station configured properly. Now everything is spiffy.

Ryan

[Alveous]

I hate to sound dense, but I wonder if anyone could post the driver installation instructions in a fashion that an informed macintosh user can understand without having to know unix or programming, ie. how does one "get root" or "use sudo". I am desperate to get my bronze keyboard PB wireless in OS X, but this is still too arcane for me.

Thanks

[MattBall]

I have the drivers installed on my Lombard, and have the steady green light. It shows up under Network preferences, but it doesn't show up under Internet Connect (my base station is connected via phone line). I have the base station set w/o encryption or closed network. Do these drivers work only with ethernet connections?
[email protected]

[SkinnyTimmy]

The "tweaked" version of the Wavelan driver works *GREAT* with my PB Lombard using a SkyLINE11 and an AirPort Base Station.

Many thanks to everyone who made third-party wireless in OS X a reality.

[ 07-06-2001: Message edited by: SkinnyTimmy ]

Has anyone got the driver to work on a Mac OS X system formatted with UFS. There are apple tech notes that say Airport drivers won't work with a UFS system and it has to be HFS+, I'm wondering if I have to refomat or not before my wavelan card gets here.

thanks!

[lgerbarg]

Originally posted by &lt;anonymous&gt;:
<STRONG>Has anyone got the driver to work on a Mac OS X system formatted with UFS. There are apple tech notes that say Airport drivers won't work with a UFS system and it has to be HFS+, I'm wondering if I have to refomat or not before my wavelan card gets here.

thanks!</STRONG>

That bug has nothing to do with the Airport drivers per se. What happened was that one file in the kext is misnamed. On HFS+ it does not matter since it is case insensitive. It should not effect this driver, and you can fix the one that shipped with OS X by renaming one file.

Louis

[wclarkson]

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It works. I'm posting on a lombard w/ my lucent/orinoco card w/ software base station. OS X is now my major OS. I can use it forever. Now all we need is toast 5 carbonized and its finished in my opinion.

[drdocument]

Hopefully, you do have your base station secured in some way.

Ryan

I have my base station "secured" by using Access Control, where I list the IP address of each Ethernet device allowed access to my base station. If anyone sees a "down side" to this method, I'd love to hear about it.

Ken

[FAerrorTAL]

YES! the mac community and opensource meet at last! it's a beautiful day...

to get "sudo" you type "sudo" before the command, it'll prompt for the root password... most likely your user password if you are admin/primary/only user....

ok folks, I have a question involving ethernet, wireless and a pc, and I need serious help. since you are seem so knowledgable and helpful, if you wanna e-mail me at [email protected] I would really appreciate it! even call me grasshoppa if you'd like!


this is so awesome...

~Aaron

[ 07-07-2001: Message edited by: FAerrorTAL ]

[yuriwho]

Note that I changed the name of the driver in the files hosted on http://homepage.mac.com/yuriwho (and my initial post) from AirportDriver.kext to WirelessDriver.kext as per Apples request. Airport is an Apple trademark and this driver is neither meant for Airport cards, nor sanctioned by Apple (quite reasonable IMHO). If anyone has troubles with the name edited version, please post here.

Cheers,

Y

[spiky_dog]

Originally posted by drdocument:
<STRONG>

I have my base station "secured" by using Access Control, where I list the IP address of each Ethernet device allowed access to my base station. If anyone sees a "down side" to this method, I'd love to hear about it.

Ken</STRONG>

You can spoof MAC and IP addresses. Reference: http://www.isp-planet.com/technology/2001/wep.html

That said, I stop at that level of protection (using a MAC address control list) on my base station as well, since my school's wired network only uses MAC address verification.

[rchang]

Has anyone else noticed an incessant background disk activity after installing this driver? I have and I don't remember this from previous uses of OS X, though I must admit that I haven't used it very often before this driver was available.

Anyway, I think the disk activity is due to the driver logging messages to /var/log/system.log. My log file has grown to 10MB and taking a look, it seems that every few seconds, the driver logs the quality and level of the signal. I know this is alpha software, but ...

Here's a snippet from my system.log

Jul 7 17:23:11 parasol mach_kernel: Airport: Quality: 0x1f, Level: 0x53, Noise: 0x34
Jul 7 17:23:12 parasol last message repeated 3 times
Jul 7 17:23:13 parasol mach_kernel: Airport: Quality: 0x1e, Level: 0x52, Noise: 0x34
Jul 7 17:23:13 parasol mach_kernel: Airport: Quality: 0x1f, Level: 0x53, Noise: 0x34
Jul 7 17:23:16 parasol last message repeated 10 times
Jul 7 17:23:16 parasol mach_kernel: Airport: Quality: 0x20, Level: 0x54, Noise: 0x34
Jul 7 17:23:16 parasol mach_kernel: Airport: Quality: 0x1f, Level: 0x53, Noise: 0x34
Jul 7 17:23:18 parasol last message repeated 5 times
Jul 7 17:23:18 parasol mach_kernel: Airport: Quality: 0x1e, Level: 0x52, Noise: 0x34

OMG thank you guys so much. I know lots of people like me with pre-airport Powerbooks really, really appreciate it. (Especially when we bought our WaveLan cards 2 weeks before OSX came out)

[yuriwho]

Richard,

I (and presumably everyone else) have had the same issue. This afternoon I edited the code to prevent it logging these messages to the log file. Works great for me. I just posted the new kext to the same place (http://homepage.mac.com/yuriwho). Let me know if it works for you and (temporarily) solves this issue. This is of course a pre-alpha version of the driver...in a week or two, I'm sure that Rob and/or Louis will post a much improved version. Until then this is what we have.

Cheers,

Y

Originally posted by rchang:
<STRONG>Has anyone else noticed an incessant background disk activity after installing this driver? I have and I don't remember this from previous uses of OS X, though I must admit that I haven't used it very often before this driver was available.

Anyway, I think the disk activity is due to the driver logging messages to /var/log/system.log. My log file has grown to 10MB and taking a look, it seems that every few seconds, the driver logs the quality and level of the signal. I know this is alpha software, but ...
</STRONG>

[drdocument]

After accidentally messing a couple of the files, I re-downloaded and re-installed, and WaveLAN works fine on my Lombard, except my LW Pro doesn't show up in the Print Center. Is printing over Ethernet/AppleTalk working for you folks?

BTW, I've not found any "system.log" file on my Lombard, so I guess I got the latest version (or I've set some preference differently).

Ken

[rchang]

Originally posted by yuriwho:
<STRONG>Richard,

I (and presumably everyone else) have had the same issue. This afternoon I edited the code to prevent it logging these messages to the log file. [...] This is of course a pre-alpha version of the driver...in a week or two, I'm sure that Rob and/or Louis will post a much improved version. Until then this is what we have.

</STRONG>

Works great for me too! Thansk a bunch for recompiling the code and making it available. I took at stab at doing so with Project Builder, but I think that I don't have the right version of IOPCCard stuff.

Richard

[yuriwho]

I believe the only difference is price and marketing.

What's the difference between these two?

[ 07-06-2001: Message edited by: abrody ][/QB]

Thank you very much for posting this! It worked flawlessly with my 1999 G3 and a WaveLAN Silver card. I used the OS 9.1 installation method and booted under OS X and after reconfiguring my Location in the Network System Preferences to use the "Ethernet Adaptor (en1)" I was able to establish a connection to my Airport base (no WEP running as an 'open network') immediately.

Warren

Originally posted by yuriwho:
<STRONG>Not sure if I should post this here or in third party software but assume there are quite a number of people that would not see it otherwise so here it is.

Drivers for Wavelan cards (and possibly others) have finally arrived thanks to the efforts of open source!! I now have my lombard powerbook wirelessly connected to my basestation.....AT LAST!!! Special thanks (and kisses ;-) to Ben Herrenschmidt, Louis Gerbarg and Rob McKeever for getting this to work. I'm sure there are others who have contributed significantly but shall remain nameless here, my apologies. Below is the readme file I wrote for the Wavelan drivers

[ 07-05-2001: Message edited by: yuriwho ]

[ 07-07-2001: Message edited by: yuriwho ]</STRONG>

[macdesk]

Originally posted by Rob McKeever:
<STRONG>

If there's anyone else out there with yet another type of card, could they e-mail the info to me? I want to make sure it doesn't get missed.

Also, do all of these cards show up with the IOName field set to something like "pccard156,2"? this might be a more generic way of trying to recognize the whole family of cards at once.

-Rob</STRONG>

Rob,

The SkyLINE card also has an IOName field set to "pccard156,2".

I checked a couple of non-wireless cards as well. They have IONames which start with "pccard101,". They are a 3Com 56k modem and a 3Com 10/100 ethernet cards.

Together, these suggest that the IOName field could indeed be a valid selection criterion.

Ryan

[ 07-08-2001: Message edited by: macdesk ]

[rchang]

Originally posted by drdocument:
<STRONG>[...]Is printing over Ethernet/AppleTalk working for you folks?
</STRONG>

Nope, can't get anything with Ethertalk to work. There's a lot of blinking on the Wavelan card when you'd expect some AppleTalk activity, but nothing shows up.

<STRONG>

BTW, I've not found any "system.log" file on my Lombard, so I guess I got the latest version (or I've set some preference differently)
</STRONG>

It's standard on MacOS X. It should be in /var/log. It doesn't show up in the Finder. You need to use the Terminal application or the Console utility (open log).

Richard Chang

[yuriwho]

I just posted a new version of the driver to the usual place. This version includes an support for Cabletron and SkyLINE cards. Ryan Walker edited the Info.plist to provide support for the other cards (thanks Ryan!) sent it to me and I included it in the new version. We have not yet tested the Cabletron support, so I would appreciate any Cabletron users replying here with a report using the new version.

As someone else noted, the opensource and Mac communities have been united....this is pretty cool.

Cheers,

Y

Originally posted by me:
<STRONG>What are the plans for supporting other models of cards? I'm especially curious about the ones with only PC support ie Linksys and Netgear - they cost significantly less than the Wavelan cards yet use similar chipsets.</STRONG>

If you have one of these cards, please post the VersionOneInfo values and the IOName value. I'll be happy to add the info into the drivers and let you see if the drivers work. If they are based on the same chipset as either the WaveLAn or the SkyLINE, they will probably work.

Ryan

[rambo47]

Wallstreet PowerBook (rev.a 292 MHz), Orinoco Silver WaveLAN, and OS X! Yuriwho, my hat is off to you! Just one more reason to love being a Mac user. Problem solved by the Open Source community.

I tried the Terminal installation about 29 times before going to the OS 9.1 method. I'm a unix idiot (not a novice, an idiot) and I used copy and paste to transfer the sudo commands right from the readme document. I kept getting "illegal command" which I think was due to my not replacing "path_to_file" with the actual file path. I didn't know what to put there. &lt;pause for laughter to taper off&gt;

Up and running great now! One note. When my battery got low the screen went black, only the green power indicator light blinking to show sleep mode. Pressing any key, including power, would do nothing to wake it. As soon as I attached the AC adapter the screen came right back. No trouble, just a bit unnerving. I thought I had fried my mobo or something.

At the time I was in Internet Explorer at the MacNN forums. When the computer came back my connectivity with the forum was immediately restored, like she never shut down. Pretty cool.

[spiky_dog]

Originally posted by yuriwho:
<STRONG>We have not yet tested the Cabletron support, so I would appreciate any Cabletron users replying here with a report using the new version.</STRONG>

Works like a charm for me with my Cabletron. Thanks for putting the extra VOI in.

[edit: VOI, oi]

[ 07-09-2001: Message edited by: spiky_dog ]

[autobahn]

I'm still looking for a way to get all this to work with the RG-1000 access point. Anyone have any info?

[trevgriff]

Any success stories with a Farallon Skyline 11MB card and a Lombard 333 bronze Powerbook? I installed successfully using both the OS X install and then the OS 9.1 install method, but in each case I never was able to even get the Link light to power up.

[drdocument]

Originally posted by rchang:
<STRONG>

Log should be in /var/log. It doesn't show up in the Finder. You need to use the Terminal application or the Console utility (open log).

Richard Chang</STRONG>

Thanks, Richard. I'm back to OS 9.1 on my Lombard 'cause I need to be able to print. But I'm going to try OS X again later today, with standard Ethernet, and make sure printing works in "hard wired" mode.

And my thanks to everyone who's working on this -- It's great! And I think it bodes *very well* for the future of OS X.

Ken

[Larry Moss]

Originally posted by &lt;anonymous&gt;:
<STRONG>Anyone actually use a different base station using these drivers than Apple's base station? I wondered if I could save some money and get a base station by D-Link, Techworks, SMC, or Linksys. Please post which base station you are using.</STRONG>

I hoped someone else would respond to this. I installed the Wavelan drivers as per the instructions here. The driver appears to recognize my card. I have teh green light and all. But I can't connect to my AP.

I have a Linksys router/AP with 4 port switch. In order to make it work wirelessly with OS 9.1 I need to turn on 802.3. As far as I can tell from what I've seen playing and what I've read, this isn't possible under OS X. Is this true? Has anyone found a workaround for the Linksys?

As an aside, this is really a limitation of the Linksys router. I can't reach non-802.3 devices through the router if I turn on 802.3. I'm real close to buying a different router. Tech support at linksys won't discuss Mac issues.

Thanks.

[murph]

Is it just me, or does yuriwho's page not work? Is there a mirror up somewhere?

Thanks

[yuriwho]

Apple's servers are down, seems to be affecting all of iTools. Hopefully it will be back up soon.

Y

Originally posted by murph:
<STRONG>Is it just me, or does yuriwho's page not work? Is there a mirror up somewhere?

Thanks</STRONG>

[fastermac]

I would like to thank all those that have contributed to the open source driver for the WaveLan cards.

I have been using the driver for a few days now and it works very nicely except for one problem. When I put the Powerbook to sleep running on battery power waking it up results in a shut down. This is not a normal shut down, the screen flickers and then goes black. I then have to connect the power supply in order to get it to boot again. Putting the computer to sleep with the power supply attached works fine, it wakes up normally. I am hoping somebody working on the drivers can find a fix (unless the problem is specific to my setup?) I am using a 1998 Powerbook (466 MHz Powerlogix BlueChip) with the Lucent WaveLan Silver card (upper slot). I also have a MacAlly USB PC Card installed (lower slot).


Thanks again to those of you that have taken time from your personal lives to create something for the Mac Community.

[ 07-09-2001: Message edited by: fastermac ]

[yuriwho]

It should be working for Skyline, make sure you actually download a newer version directly from http:/homepage.mac.com/yuriwho as you will still get the old version from any page that links directly to the old file (even though I removed the file...must due to to Apples server cache). The Readme for the newer version should say it has support for Skyline/Cabletron.

Please keep the bug reports flowing so we can get this driver working for the most people.

Y

Originally posted by trevgriff:
<STRONG>Any success stories with a Farallon Skyline 11MB card and a Lombard 333 bronze Powerbook? I installed successfully using both the OS X install and then the OS 9.1 install method, but in each case I never was able to even get the Link light to power up.</STRONG>

[ 07-11-2001: Message edited by: yuriwho ]

[drdocument]

Originally posted by yuriwho:
<STRONG>

Please keep the bug reports flowing so we can get this driver working for the most people.

Y

</STRONG>

FYI, Still not able to print from Lombard with WaveLAN. I've got base station set to enable AirPort to Ethernet bridging, and it worked under OS 9.1, but no go in OS X.

[dogzilla]

Originally posted by fastermac:
<STRONG>I have been using the driver for a few days now and it works very nicely except for one problem. When I put the Powerbook to sleep running on battery power waking it up results in a shut down. This is not a normal shut down, the screen flickers and then goes black. I then have to connect the power supply in order to get it to boot again. </STRONG>

I'll second this. I thought I was having problems with my mobo. I did a reset and it started working. In my case, I see faint stripes on the screen and nothing else. Once I plug in and restart, things work again. I'm on a Wallstreet with 256mb, 10.0.4, and Wavelan Silver in the top slot.

[macdesk]

The current drivers do not put the PC Card to sleep when the computer goes to sleep. If you have a link light on your card, you should notice that it remains on when the computer goes to sleep.

So, don't put your PowerBook to sleep unless it's plugged in.

Ryan

[yuriwho]

On my Lombard G3 (1999) with a Wavelan silver the card sleeps and wakes fine, is the sleep issue only affecting Wallstreets? Regardless, I suspect the sleep issues are controlled by IOPCCardFamily.kext and not the WirelessDriver per se so they are probably in Apple's hands. Rob or Louis would know for sure, I'm just speculating (but I did sleep at a Holiday Inn last night ;-).

Y

THANKS RYAN!!! I got my Skyline wireless up and running the first time. (My first time in the terminal too-thank god for that linux book I read over the weekend) All you have to do is back up the IOPPCardFamily file and then replace it with the new one along with the AirportDriver...and then re-boot

P.S. if you are new to terminal you need to set your root pass in the net info manager.

Thanks again ryan... and open source friends

[spiky_dog]

Originally posted by macdesk:
<STRONG>The current drivers do not put the PC Card to sleep when the computer goes to sleep. If you have a link light on your card, you should notice that it remains on when the computer goes to sleep.

So, don't put your PowerBook to sleep unless it's plugged in.

Ryan</STRONG>

I have also noticed this. While my Lombard doesn't have any problems with the screen upon waking up, it never turns the card off when sleeping, as Ryan notes above.

[hoverman]

Hi guys. I have a Lombard G3 400 with a Wavelan Silver PC Card. Everything works properly under OS 9.1 and I have WEP turned off like the other posts suggested (no closed network or network robustness turned on either). Well, I can't get these neat looking drivers to work. I read the readme file and tried to install the files in both OS 9.1 and OS X. Both times, the en1 adapter did not show up in my Network Control Panel. Does anyone have an idea what is going on? It might have something to do with permissions, but I don't know how to check this or change it if it is wrong. I really don't have any experience with Unix, but I really want this to work!

Other Lombard owners seem to have this working so I hope someone can chime in soon.

Thanks!!

[trevgriff]

Yuriwho, Thanks for the response. I do have the latest files. I also finaly got it to work, but I needed to go through OS 9 to make it happen. The key for me was to be working in OS 9 with my Farallon card active and connected to my Airport Base Station when I restarted into OS X with the new drivers installed. Again thanks for the help and the files.

Just out of couriosity is there any way to make the card inactive, or I guess the question should be how do you properly remove the wireless card from a powerbook?

[hoverman]

Hi guys...

I figured out my problems. My permissions got screwed up somehow when I installed the files. If anyone else is having problems, use the ll comand when they are in /System/Library/Extensions and see if the permissions match those in the readme file. Mine were set to admin and my username. I asked a unix friend to help me and soon after en1 showed up in my network control panel! I love wireless!

[itslint]

Got it working with my TiBook, Orinoco Gold, SMC Wireless Barricade base station.

This is great! The range is sooo much better than my pathetic airport card. I think that card's going to come out and go back to Fry's...

Now if we only had WEP, signal strength indicator, and SSID selection... :-)

Thanks everybody!

-ted

I am a Lombard user with a WaveLAN Gold card. I was orginally having problems getting Airport to work. The power on light would blink a few times, but would only stay on when the laptop was asleep (odd). Then I remembered that I never upgraded my Airport software to 1.3.1. I had heard a horror story or two about WaveLAN cards getting accidentally flashed by the Airport 1.3.1 upgrage; so I stayed away from it.

On a hunch, I upgraded my wifes iBook to Airport 1.3.1 and connected to the Base Station through it... which then upgraded the Base Station. Now my WaveLAN card is performing very well with the Base Station.