The Wavelan drivers saga ------------------------ By Jean Tourrilhes <jt@hpl.hp.com> The Wavelan is a Radio network adapter designed by Lucent. Under this generic name is hidden quite a variety of hardware, and many Linux driver to support it. The get the full story on Wireless LANs, please consult : http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/Linux/ "wavelan" driver (old ISA Wavelan) ---------------- o Config : Network device -> Wireless LAN -> AT&T WaveLAN o Location : .../drivers/net/wavelan* o in-line doc : .../drivers/net/wavelan.p.h o on-line doc : http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/Linux/Wavelan.html This is the driver for the ISA version of the first generation of the Wavelan, now discontinued. The device is 2 Mb/s, composed of a Intel 82586 controller and a Lucent Modem, and is NOT 802.11 compliant. The driver has been tested with the following hardware : o Wavelan ISA 915 MHz (full length ISA card) o Wavelan ISA 915 MHz 2.0 (half length ISA card) o Wavelan ISA 2.4 GHz (full length ISA card, fixed frequency) o Wavelan ISA 2.4 GHz 2.0 (half length ISA card, frequency selectable) o Above cards with the optional DES encryption feature "wavelan_cs" driver (old Pcmcia Wavelan) ------------------- o Config : Network device -> PCMCIA network -> Pcmcia Wireless LAN -> AT&T/Lucent WaveLAN o Location : .../drivers/net/pcmcia/wavelan* o in-line doc : .../drivers/net/pcmcia/wavelan_cs.h o on-line doc : http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/Linux/Wavelan.html This is the driver for the PCMCIA version of the first generation of the Wavelan, now discontinued. The device is 2 Mb/s, composed of a Intel 82593 controller (totally different from the 82586) and a Lucent Modem, and NOT 802.11 compatible. The driver has been tested with the following hardware : o Wavelan Pcmcia 915 MHz 2.0 (Pcmcia card + separate modem/antenna block) o Wavelan Pcmcia 2.4 GHz 2.0 (Pcmcia card + separate modem/antenna block) "wvlan_cs" driver (Wavelan IEEE, GPL) ----------------- o Config : Not yet in kernel o Location : Pcmcia package 3.1.10+ o on-line doc : http://www.fasta.fh-dortmund.de/users/andy/wvlan/ This is the driver for the current generation of Wavelan IEEE, which is 802.11 compatible. Depending on version, it is 2 Mb/s or 11 Mb/s, with or without encryption, all implemented in Lucent specific DSP (the Hermes). This is a GPL full source PCMCIA driver (ISA is just a Pcmcia card with ISA-Pcmcia bridge). "wavelan2_cs" driver (Wavelan IEEE, binary) -------------------- o Config : Not yet in kernel o Location : ftp://sourceforge.org/pcmcia/contrib/ This driver support exactly the same hardware as the previous driver, the main difference is that it is based on a binary library and supported by Lucent. I hope it clears the confusion ;-) Jean