Wireless Networking

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The following are manufacturers of wireless cards:

The following are problems/suggestions, with regards to wireless networking:

I recently had a problem with wireless networking hardware, whereby I was trying to setup vitrual servers(port forwarding - for two web servers and one ftp server) with a Belking 54g wireless router (F5d7230-4, uk version). The problem was that everytime I tried to save the settings, they wouldn't save e.g. top right of screen would say no connection. However, after looking around both belkins website and the web, I only found part of the solution. The host pc had to have a static ip address, rather than receiving one via dhcp from the router. Still didn't resolve the saving settings issue. Luckily, I had two computers, one the hosting machine(pentium) and another which is a P4 pentium machine. So, I tried changing the virtual server settings via the P4 machine, and the settings were saved e.g. top right said connected. It would therefore seem that a specific hardware is required to save settings to the router with e.g. processor power,ram, etc. All I know is that it worked with my P4 machine. Note, that I did disable the IP address of the hosting machine from the DMZ zone, after it worked. Another, thing to remember, when doing settings, is that they will not work through software firewalls.
Windows xp, and any wireless manufacturers software. Make sure that you do not have the XP built-in wireless network support enabled, if using the manufacturers own wirless network software. The reason for this is that it could cause an IP conflict error, like I had recently on a netgear wirless router.
A suggestion, is to make sure that you use any encryption included with the hardware, the stronger the security the better e.g WEP key(upto 128-bit encryption), WPA-PSK(using TKIP/AES encryption), and if you can afford it WPA with radius server (which is now more viable having seen that there is know an open source radius server available.). Also, make sure you disable the 'Broadcast SSID' option. Prevents other people from seeing your private network. Furthermore, use mac address/ip filtering for the wireless router, and perhaps don't use dhcp.
With regards to wireless cards/adapters under LINUX, I used the linuxant software with my installation of SUSE Linux 9.2 (now owned by Novell), and my Belkin PCI Adapter. It works quite well. Have recently upgraded to OpenSuse Linux 10.2 and the pci adapter via linuxant still works, however there is still issues with wireless usb network adapters, even under linuxant, in my case with a belkin one.
In regards to wireless usb adapters under windows vista, I did get my belkin one working under the 64-bit ultimate edition, by hacking the device driver for the ralink rt73,and inserting the device id info for the belkin.

You can now get wireless printers from hp,brother, or lexmark. Alternatively, if you already have a decent printer and which to make it wireless, you can now buy a wireless print server from the likes of belkin,dlink,3com etc...