# Would anyone be willing to suggest a dongle that just works?



## g_willikers (Apr 9, 2010)

Greetings,
 I've been recently forced (abruptly) to switch to wireless by my upstream.
So after _years_ of uninterrupted conectivity on all my FreeBSD boxen,
I'm having a devil of a time trying to get connected. Had I ample warning, I'd have
done enough research to make a smooth transition...
That said, would anyone care to suggest a USB dongle that "just works"? That is;
is there a USB dongle that FreeBSD seems to like "right out of the box"?
I'd love it if it supported 802.11*n*, but then again, if 802.11*g* is all it
provides, I won't complain (much) 

Thank you for any, and all input - it's *greatly* appreciated.

--Chris


----------



## SirDice (Apr 9, 2010)

So, you're looking for a USB wireless network card. 

A "dongle" is really something completely different.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dongle

Maybe I'm old fashioned but when I read 'dongle' I read copy protection.


----------



## g_willikers (Apr 9, 2010)

Greetings SirDice, and thank you for your prompt reply.
I'm as you; I always think of those "Copy Protection" devices attached to the
lpt/serial ports when I hear "Dongle". But, I see so many refer to the USB "nic's"
as Dongles && Dangles, that I just ass-umed that's what they were _also_ referred to.
SO. For the sake of _clarity_;
I'm looking for a USB network card - you know, those little thingies that poke out of
your USB port, and talk tou your "hot spot" device, or your closest "cell tower".

Hope it's clearer now. 

--Chris


----------



## SirDice (Apr 9, 2010)

AFAIK these are the supported USB wireless adapters.


uath(4)
upgt(4)
ural(4)
urtw(4)


----------



## g_willikers (Apr 9, 2010)

SirDice said:
			
		

> AFAIK these are the supported USB wireless adapters.
> 
> 
> uath(4)
> ...



Thanks again for such a prompt reply SirDice!
I saw these in the Hardware section - yes, I _did_ look there _before_
posting this. 

I don't suppose you have any _personal_ experience with any of these. Or would be _brave_ enough to suggest one of them?

Thanks again SirDice. I appreciate your taking the time to respond.


--Chris


----------



## jb_fvwm2 (Apr 9, 2010)

search "edimax", I have a post mentioning
the edimax ew-7318usg.  (Not at the machine now
so I do not remember which driver it works with).


/edit:::
(probably the "rum" driver )


----------



## g_willikers (Apr 9, 2010)

will do!
Thanks for the reply jb_fvwm2. 

--Chris


----------



## SirDice (Apr 9, 2010)

I've got a linksys 11n USB adapter lying around somewhere. Never tried it on FreeBSD though. I'll see if I can test it.

I do know the WPC54AG works but that's a PCMCIA card. If you have a PCMCIA slot it's probably better to use that. USB is a client-server model and pushing lots of data through it does tend to hit the CPU.


----------



## g_willikers (Apr 9, 2010)

SirDice said:
			
		

> I've got a linksys 11n USB adapter lying around somewhere. Never tried it on FreeBSD though. I'll see if I can test it.


You rock. Thanks 



			
				SirDice said:
			
		

> I do know the WPC54AG works but that's a PCMCIA card. If you have a PCMCIA slot it's probably better to use that. USB is a client-server model and pushing lots of data through it does tend to hit the CPU.


While I _will_ be using this on my laptop with pcmcia, my _main_ usage will be
across USB. CPU usage shouldn't be a big issue, as I hope to devote one box to being a
gateway/bridge/router, and it has 2 CPU's and will be diong nothing else (to speak of).
On the other hand, if I do hang USB nic's on all of the servers, they _also_ have
no less than 2 CPU's, and they're servers only - not workstations that run X, and a bunch
of Multimedia play toys. 

Thanks for all your input and help, SirDice!

--Chris


----------



## Kiiski (Apr 9, 2010)

Hi

 I have Asus WL-167G USB WLAN adapter. It works ok, but it's only 802.11g.
It works also in Access Point mode.


----------



## g_willikers (Apr 9, 2010)

Hello Kiiski, thanks for your reply



			
				Kiiski said:
			
		

> Hi
> I have Asus WL-167G USB WLAN adapter. It works ok, but it's only 802.11g.


11g wouldn't be the end of the world. _Ideally_ 11n is my ultimate goal. However...



			
				Kiiski said:
			
		

> It works also in Access Point mode.


*this* is a redeeming quality 

Thanks again, Kiiski!

--Chris


----------



## phoenix (Apr 9, 2010)

If these are going into servers, why bother with USB?  Get real, proper, known-to-work-without-hassles PCI NICs.

And if these are going into laptops, again, don't bother with USB.  Get PCCard NICs.

USB networking is a hack, on top of a hack, on top of a hack.  Save yourself a lot of grief, and just get PCI/PCCard NICs.


----------



## g_willikers (Apr 9, 2010)

phoenix said:
			
		

> If these are going into servers, why bother with USB?  Get real, proper, known-to-work-without-hassles PCI NICs.
> 
> And if these are going into laptops, again, don't bother with USB.  Get PCCard NICs.
> 
> USB networking is a hack, on top of a hack, on top of a hack.  Save yourself a lot of grief, and just get PCI/PCCard NICs.



Thanks for the advice phoenix, but the server boards are U1 and won't accommodate
pci NIC's (they already have 2 onboard NIC's). So my best recourse is to use (for now)
USB nic's.

Good advice, and I'd of already done it, but not an option. 

Thanks again.

--Chris


----------



## g_willikers (Apr 9, 2010)

*Edit*

That should have read; 1U above. I'd have used the EDIT button, but they don't issue those until you have no use for them. :\


----------



## g_willikers (Apr 9, 2010)

*P.p.s*



			
				g_willikers said:
			
		

> That should have read; 1U above. I'd have used the EDIT button, but they don't issue those until you have no use for them. :\



and if I go the dedicated box way (gateway/bridge/router) I can hang 6 USB nic's off of it
and let all the servers route their traffic through it by way of 1000Mbit ether.
Which will save the servers CPU slices, routing overhead, and allow them to continue
using the onboard NIC's they're already using. 

--Chris


----------



## phoenix (Apr 9, 2010)

Ah, you didn't specify you had space constraints, which is why you need USB.  That changes things.


----------



## mururoa (Apr 28, 2010)

*Which Wifi USB dongle ?*

Hi there,

Just bought a laptop and bingo no network at all !

I checked before and choosed one with nvidia GFX and Atheros Wifi.
But Samsung changed from Atheros to Realtek and there is no driver for this one (RTL8192E) and more, ndis dont work either 

So wich Wifi USB dongle should I buy to have no problem with FreeBSD 8.0 ?


----------



## jb_fvwm2 (Apr 29, 2010)

See my post above?  
Although the wpa_* setup I did is specific to the
wifi access point and not the bsd machine; the
hardware is the easy part.  
(edimax & rum0) 
The setup (rc.conf) is the difficult part.  
As usual it "all of a sudden worked" after many
hours of threads , and pages of notes ,
...
Inexpensive too. (It is not the "very latest" but
is speedy enough.).


----------



## mururoa (Apr 29, 2010)

I just ordered a SMC SMCWUSBT-G2 (b,g,n) wich is supposed to be supported by the uath driver and is very inexpensive too (around ~15 â‚¬).
I'll let you know if all is ok after installation.


----------



## mururoa (May 3, 2010)

Bleh, bad news 
I missed something and ordered SMCWUSB-N2 instead of -G2. This one does not work right now with 8.0-STABLE. It should work soon or not since it's an upgraded G2 with still an Atheros chip but not now. So I dont returned it back and will wait until it's supported.
Then I ordered the right one -G2 wich is incredibly low price (< 8 â‚¬) but only b,g and let you know after test.

Edit : the new one (G2) didnt worked either. Was given for supported and listed in the driver supported device but didn't worked at all. So I gave up for 8.0 and installed another operating system that support both integraded wifi and integrated lan.


----------



## carlton_draught (Jun 10, 2010)

phoenix said:
			
		

> USB networking is a hack, on top of a hack, on top of a hack.  Save yourself a lot of grief, and just get PCI/PCCard NICs.


I can vouch for this. My system instability has appeared to have cleared up after ridding my system of USB networking (which used a probably flaky USB hub in between) - so far 16 days uptime and counting, after previous 6 days max. I was constantly getting disconnection messages in the logs from my USB wireless. Whether or not that was the ultimate cause of the hanging, I don't really know. But it's messy to have logs being written to like that for something that should not be happening, and not using USB wireless stops it.

Now, for regular PCI wireless you will more than likely want a way to put your antenna somewhere that is not directly behind your computer. Otherwise, the back of your PCI card will be sitting behind a nice reflective wall (the back of your computer), and if it's reflecting signal away from your WAP you are going to get poor reception.

I opted to connect via ethernet to an existing PC-Engines WRAP Zeroshell installation, which then acts as a wireless bridge to my ADSL modem/router/WAP. I positioned the WRAP and made a reflector for its antenna. Everything functions perfectly now. I can also connect several other devices to the WRAP to utilize that one wireless connection while having 100Mb/s locally that will not bog down the wireless channel. I can use Zeroshell to filter URLs, perform QoS, and act as an extra hardware firewall. And it uses less than 10 Watts.

But yeah, listen to phoenix, he knows what he's talking about.


----------



## apoca (Jun 15, 2010)

Hello everyone,

I plan to buy 802.11n USB device. I only have one free PCI slot in my computer, which I need for another controller.
I read the hardware-list in the release notes of FreeBSD 7.2R (which I'm going to use) but cannot find anything about the AR9001U chipset. This chipset is from Atheros and is used in the Fritz!WLAN Stick N from AVM (german company).
Does anyone has any experience with this stick or can recommend another one which works with FreeBSD 7.2R?


----------

