LogIt!

Approx 3 months ago after I've built a Linux home server for myself I thought to make it also into a wireless access point. I then ran into several issues that were all more or less caused by the fact that the open source driver for my Linksys WMP55AG PCI Wireless adapter did not support the AP (master) mode well. I needed all possible patches to all possible modules and eventually made it work but only for my WM5 Pocket PC and only in open (unsecured) mode.
After all the issues I had I decided to wait until all patches made it into the official tree. Yesterday I've downloaded the latest compat-wireless, hostapd 0.6.9, installed them and everything worked out of the box, including open mode and WPA and on both WM6 smartphone and WM5 Pocket PC! I am much more happy now.
Now why did I need an access point on Linux when it's built into any cheap router? First, my current Draytek router supporting more than 1 IP adress on a PPPOA interface is not wireless. I've got a spare Linksys router but keeping it switched on just for wi-fi that I use once a week is not green! And secondly, well, just for fun. If I could also find an internal/extrernal ADSL2+ modem card my Linux box would be a full home networking solution.

Labels: ath5k, linux, wifi, wireless