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Okay, we'll give this week a try with the traditional names...
...and start off with some news for the Linux Wireless crowd. Last week, Jon Hassell asked about wireless networking with a lean toward the penguinish side of things. I couldn't provide much help then, as my NICs are no longer in production. But a little checking around...
Bingo! Raytheon is still making their system! My Webgear system is based on Build 4 of the Raytheon equipment; the current implementation is Build 5. ...and it's a slam dunk under the current Linux distros. Since version 3.1.9 of the PCMCIA card services packages, the driver for the Raytheon-based equipment has been built in. Just install the card services, configure your network settings and enjoy.
Raytheon's support page is here; their store is here.
...and while I can offer you no direct experience with the Raylink equipment, I see only improvements to the stuff I'm currently using. ...and considering Saturday's posts and emails were handled from the laptop on the patio or kitchen table, this is a working technology.
...and don't run right out and spend the money for an Access Point. Think about what you're working with: my laptop takes a PCMCIA card. Cool. There's an ISA adapter and another PCMCIA card sitting in Grandpa's castoff P-90 in the library. Also cool. ...and much cheaper. ...and that testbed machine is connected to the dial-up router.
...and there's a good possibility that the next boxen will be triple-homed: dialup, main network, wireless network. The parts are all there...
...and yes, latency would be an issue if you are playing net games; my wireless adds about an order of magnitude into a trace route to the laptop. Still, for day to day use, it's transparent. Kitfox, the laptop, and Tux, the testbed are both running Mandrake; Kitfox is on 7.2, the testbed on 7.1.
Want to roll your own? Here's the definitive treatment of this equipment from the Linux side. Does it work under Windows?
Not much of a post here folks... Maybe I'll get something up over on the ETP site later. Events pretty much overran Monday. ...and Monday evening turned into 'Fun with ftp, Part II'.
...and the later evening into even more of a distraction as I found myself with homework from the earlier 'class' given by Dr. Bilbrey. Heck, even this post is a test from the laptop.
You see, I've had some interesting doings with gftp. ...to the point I'm CLI only until I figure out WT? is going on. The good news? I learned enough from that to actually have a clue during last night's session...
Hey, even 'null set' is a data point!
It's gotten so bad I cannot even keep track of which machine I'm posting from... I went to post last night on the NT box and found I'd done yesterday's post from the laptop while I was working in the living room. I guess all the late night work I did later must have confused me. ...'cause that was all done on the Win95. ...and that was because I need the direct dialup connection to work on the church site.
Oh, yeah: I finally have the answer on that one; the hosting service will not accept connections from anyone running NAT. That's why I couldn't pull a solid connection from the network. Sheesh. I should have figured that one out sooner. It's just that I can hit their system and do some work... It's the uploads that get blocked.
Somber news: Jan Svenson lost his father on Monday.
Interesting times here in California: electricity rate hikes in the neighborhood of forty-six percent (YMMV)...
Completely unrelated: while at Costco on Monday, I noticed they had pad-mounted 8kw generators for $2200US.
Um, those were complete... By that I mean they came with a preformed pad, gas lines ready for hookup to a valve, a distribution panel, and a automatic transfer switch. All pre-wired... Oh, and instructions.
Ferrets... Yep, ferrets on crack. Matt nailed that one perfectly in his Wednesday post.
Crack smoking ferrets. ...with accents. I'm not sure about the incompetent part... No, wait. Yep! He's quite correct: incompetent. Well, maybe not. You decide...
WT??? SuSe isn't going to do a laptop dance for me. ...and I so wanted to partake of that show.<Sigh>
Okay. Coherence: It was probably subliminal... Most likely as I was quoting Matt yesterday on my ETP site, I was wondering if SuSe would work on a P-120 with 40 megs of RAM. So I fired up an install to see what I could see. ...and, since I'd carefully followed Matt's adventures, I didn't go for a minimal install; I said give me the 'Office' package.
Hmmm, first bad news: SuSe wants more than forty megs to install under X. Why? No matter; YaST2 comes up in text mode so we can move forward. ...all the way to Matt's blank screen. Well, at least I had a cursor.
K'; we'll do it again, only with a hand-picked package install. So I fire things up (remember kids: don't try this at home; I am an untrained amateur. ...and installs take over an hour each on poor KitFox) and make darned sure I get X installed as part of the package... Results? See the above paragraph<g>...
K' again. Read Matt's missive for clues... Ah, network! Okay, pull the CD out and let the floppy trundle; maybe I can get the network up and pull the install from Tux or his cousin... Yeehaa. Nope... It'll load network drivers, just not the one I need...
Oh look: 'more modules...' And it loads the same group (a nice group, by the way; just not all-inclusive). Well, I don't think the ferrets, even in their wildest crack-induced dreams thought anyone would be crazy enough to want to pull a wireless install<g><g><g>...
So, I'll slide the Mandrake HDD back in tonight and forget about SuSe on the laptop for now...
I'm at the college today. I just realized I have an anniversary of sorts coming up; it was sometime in the early eighties when I started the teaching gig on Saturdays... That's a bit of time. Even though it's part time, perhaps I'd better call the retirement board that covers my classification and see if there's any hope of any benefits. ...and get my exact start date.
For those of you wondering, yes; that means I've been with my firm on the main job since 1978 and the same outfit for my part-time job since 1982. ...and I realize in this day and age, that is somewhat unusual. Then again, I've been in the industry since 1969.
weekly Security Update for IE5...
Man, have I even mentioned how I dislike time changes? No? How about April Fool's Day? Yeah, that too. ...especially when they occur together. ...after a long week. ...and a teaching day.
Sheesh. ...and now the ETP server is apparently down. So the posts that are scheduled for that side of the swamp will be delayed.
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