[Q] D-Link DWL-520+

[Anthony Naggs]

In article <20030617001013.GA10301 at index.faucet.net>, Darren Bolding
<darren at faucet.net> writes
>I've been considering getting some PCI card wireless adapaters for various
>systems, and when researching the DWL-520+ came across somwhat conflicting
>information.
>
>This card is not listed as supported by FreeBSD.  I was wondering if anyone
>has had any luck with it?

It is not supported.

>From what I can tell, the DWL-520+ uses a TI chip 

It seems like all "22 Mbps" "802.11b+" cards use TI chips.

>as opposed to the DWL-520
>which uses a prism 2.5 chipset.  The last discussion I was able to glean any 
>information from was from several months ago.
>
>I'm just wondering if there has been, or is likely to be, any progress on
>this card. 

My understanding is that TI have declined to provide programming
information to either FreeBSD or Linux developers.  Probably this is
just TI protecting what they consider to be valuable information about
their technologies.

Possibly a business case could be presented to TI that there are X
million BSD & Linux systems that they are excluding themselves from.
Maybe they would change their minds, but there are a growing number of
suppliers of conforming 11Mbps 802.11b chipsets with lower prices and TI
would not get much business from BSD & Linux systems.  Within a few
months anyone really caring about the higher speed will probably be
shopping for an 802.11g system anyway.

I'm interested in contributing to FreeBSD's wireless networking support,
but I've chosen to work on parts with documentation & manufacturer
support.  (Realtek's 802.11b chip.)  Poking around in TI's Windows
drivers and trying to determine how their chip works sounds like a time
consuming project, with no guarantee that TI wont have moved on to
something new before the driver is finished.


Tony