WLAN w/ RealTek chips?

[Anthony Naggs]

In article <20030507215242.V26888 at shell.gsinet.sittig.org>, Gerhard
Sittig <Gerhard.Sittig at gmx.net> writes
>Browsing through the newly released German c't magazine I noticed
>a rather cheap offer for PCMCIA WLAN cards (EUR 25,-).  The "spec"
>in the commercial and on the website reads like a generic WiFi
>product (802.11b, 2.4GHz, 128bit WEP, 1/2/5.5/11 MBit).  But the
>"RealTek chipset" mentioned makes me stop and wonder.

The RealTek RTL8180 Wireless LAN part was launched at the end of last
year/early this year.  It looks like this is one of the first products
to use the chip.


>What are the chances of FreeBSD support for these cards?

It used to be easy to get RealTek datasheets, but there seem to be none
on their website now.  They do at least have source code for a Linux
driver on their web site, so there is some 'reference' material to work
from.


Other Taiwanese companies are rushing to bring out WLAN chipsets too.
For instance the AdmTek ADM8211, SiS SiS160 & Inprocomm IPN2120.  I
can't see either datasheets or example driver source code for any of
these.


[snip]
>For those interested:  visit http://www.innet24.de/ and follow
>the Netzwerk -> Wireless -> "ALL0182 Wireless PCMCIA Adapter"
>route.  ...
>
>BTW do I not know how to read the pile of words at the "ALL0272
>Wireless 54 Mbit PCMCIA Adapter" description (54MBit/s with
>Intersil chips?). ...

Looks like it uses Intersil (Prism) 802.11g (54Mb/s) chipset, and
mentions compatibility with 802.11b (11Mb/s) networks.


ttfn
-- 
Tony Naggs