Archive for the ‘WiFi/WLAN’ Category

Hardware support: D-Link DWA-125 WiFi Dongle and IGEL Linux V5

Friday, March 28th, 2014

Hello Folks,

today we tested the D-Link DWA-125 USB WiFi dongle with the IGEL Linux V5 (Version 5.02.100).

d_link_dwa_125

 

The device workes fine and we were not able to find any issues.

Hardware Specs:

Product: D-Link 125
Model: EWA125EU A2G
Hardware Revision: A2
Firmware: 1.40
Chipset: Ralink RT3070

Warning: There are other revisions available (incl. different chipsets) and this test was only done with revision A2 just bought in a retail store! See also: https://wikidevi.com/wiki/D-Link_DWA-125_rev_A3

Cheers

Michael

Migrated with UDC2: Acer Aspire V5 – 131

Tuesday, October 15th, 2013

Hello Folks,

i got the results for one of the first Universal Desktop Converter 2 (Universal Desktop V2 5.01.110)  migrations, thanks to Kent for providing these results!

 

Acer Aspire V5 - 131

Acer Aspire V5 – 131

 

Ethernet 1000/100/10: Working

WiFi: Not working, using an Dlnk DWA131 USB.

Touchpad: working

USB Ports: Working

Audio: Working

Webcam: Not tested

SD Card Reader: Not available

Smart Card Reader: Not available

Fingerprint Reader: Not available

GFX Card: 1366 x 768 are working fine.

 

Cheers

Michael

Tip: Building a roaming WiFi solution with Thin Clients

Monday, December 17th, 2012

Hi Folks,

sometimes user try to setup a roaming solution together with Thin Clients and discover different connection issues and the roaming in general works bad.

Reasons for roaming issues:

– The WiFi Adapter is not designed for a roaming enterprise solution – This happens very often and mostly WiFi devices are designed for a stationary or home/office use where roaming is not required by default. This includes also the WiFi Adapter used in the IGEL extension food and nearly every WiFi Adapter sold at retail market’s.

– To small Antenna’s, a USB WiFi dongle comes with a 2 up to 5 cm (1 or 2 inch) antenna and this is in general no deal for a roaming WiFi connection. If you compare this to a Laptop antenna, which is very often 15cm or more included into the display part of an “enterprise” Laptop, it has no Chance to provide a good result. Retail home use Laptop’s do also mostly not provide a large antenna, this can be compared quite easy… Use a 600$ home and a 1300$ enterprise Laptop and compare the WiFi signal quality, in 80% of all test scenario’s you will see a big difference here and the enterprise Laptop provide a much better signal quality.

– Antenna is covered by parts of the device case and/or the signal is blocked in the direction to the Access Point.

How to solve this?

Simple: Forget WiFi network card’s or USB Adapter’s and take a new approach to setup a roaming solution: Use an Ethernet to WiFi bridge. This way is more expensive then a funny USB WiFi gimmick solution, but it will work and you have a lot of different solutions available depending on the scenario.

Benefit: The thin client/end device don’t has to deal with the WiFi connection at all, these device also do have more seperate antenna’s and very often more then one connection interface/circuit to provide permanent connection stability. It’s driver independent and it will work with Windows CE, Linux and Windows based end user devices out of the box thru the ethernet port.

Usage: Industrial WiFi requirements, Thin Client and WiFi device are mounted on a cart, truck, construction vehicle or similar. This solutions is not or only limited useable for regular Office walk thru designs.

Devices:

Netgear WiFi Bridge N900

From the lower price segment these devices will work good for small/medium environment’s: Netgear WiFi Bridge N900, Price ~100 US$, two antennas (picture) or Cisco Small Business – WET200 Bridge, Price ~130 US$ with two antennas. For outdoor solutions and high end requirements (large range/two or more connection circuits) the price range can go up to 1000 US$ or more. In any way: All devices that can be used as a WiFi Bridge (mostly all Access Points/Routers) can be used for this trick and they provide much better results then any WiFi USB dongle will do.

Update: I’ve been asked for an high end outdoor solution device, look @ Funkwerk/Bintec (www.teldat.de) for Bridge devices, the biggest devices can handle up to a 5km (4 Miles) distance and they always come with multiple circuits and antennas like the W1002n (up to 1000m range). But please: These devices are mostly not designed for indoor use and are very expensive (between 400 and 3000 US$)! So for industrial use in construction areas, mines or similar it might be ok but for the use in a habitation or indoor: Forget it please!!!

Cheers
Michael

P.S.: Like everytime no guarantee from my side and you need to test this! This article is also only for mobile clients moving around in a building or area a lot!

P.S.2: This will only provide a little help against radio interference, check this out too if the issue is not solved by an Ethernet to WiFi bridge! I’ve got an old  USB Bluetooth dongle that kills any WiFi (B/G/N=2.4 GHz) connection in a 5m (15 feet) area as example…. 🙂

Tested: Sitecom WL-113 WiFi Adapter with IGEL Universal Desktop LX/OS

Monday, July 16th, 2012

sitecom.jpg

Today i’ve tested an older Sitecom WL-113 WiFi USB Adapter together with the IGEL Universal Desktop LX/OS and it works without any issues for me.

The Sitecom WL-113 was available a long time, so if you still have some of these devices you should be able to use it together with your IGEL Linux based devices. The information’s on the device are not much and i was not able to figure out if alway’s the same design/chipset is used, but it worth to try it.

The Sitecom WL-113 is using the ZyDAS ZD1211 chipset which is not mentioned official by IGEL, so similar devices can be also compatible to the IGEL Linux.

Cheers
Michael

Tested: Belkin Wireless G USB Network Adapter with IGEL Universal Desktop LX/OS

Wednesday, June 27th, 2012

Today i tested the Belkin Wireless G USB Network Adapter (Ralink RT2573) with the IGEL Universal Desktop LX and OS system. In both cases the adapter works perfect for me, of course i can’t guarentee this at all.

Belkin Wireless G USB Network Adapter

I’ve tested the Version: Belkin F5D7050 (http://www.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Product_Id=179211) together with WPA2 /WPA.

Cheers
Michael

Supported WiFi devices IGEL Universal Desktop LX / OS (UDC) Version 4.08.500

Tuesday, February 28th, 2012

Hello Folks,

very often people ask what WiFi devices are supported; iam sorry to say: there is no list currently.

But we can provide you a list of supported chipset’s, please note: this is no guarentee at all, very often vendors add custom features/design’s to the chipsset and this means: it can work.

• Ralink RT73

• Ralink RT3090

• Atheros AR5212A

• VIA VT6656

• Ralink RT2870

•ATH9k (List of supported chipsets: http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/ath9k#supported_chipsets)

• iwlwifi http://intellinuxwireless.org/

• iwl2945

I recommend the ATH9k which works great together with the Universal Desktop OS and my Asus EeePC 1011 PX (Dual core Atom incl. Dual Screen support, http://www.asus.com/Eee/Eee_PC/Eee_PC_1011PX/ ), i got some small issues here during the installation with the network card but finally it works great (still without network card, but hey.. It’s a netbook and i don’t care as long the WiFi works; the rest of the hardware incl. webcam works fine).

Cheers

Michael