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29.3.08 14:53 Fritz WLAN USB on OpenSUSE 10.3 (

)

Since I got my new PC (back in December 2007), I moved my old PC in a corner in my bedroom. I rarely used it because I don't have any network wire there.

Finally today I decided to buy a 22€ WLAN USB stick [5] von AVM [4].

After plugging it into the PC, a usb storage device was mounted.

new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 5
usb 1-1: not running at top speed; connect to a high speed hub
usb 1-1: new device found, idVendor=057c, idProduct=6201
usb 1-1: new device strings: Mfr=3, Product=2, SerialNumber=1
usb 1-1: Product: WLAN USB Device
usb 1-1: Manufacturer: AVM GmbH
usb 1-1: SerialNumber: 001C4AF5CDC5
usb 1-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice

This is a nice idea, because you (could) have drivers directly on the stick (and not on another CD), but there were only Windows driver on it. It's also not on the CD. And nowhere is mentioned that the stick works with Linux. But everybody, and probably also AVM know that the stick works well with Linux, AVM did even write a driver for it. Agree, it's in an OpenSuse 10.2 directory and I only tested it with OpenSUSE 10.3, but reading a little bit on the net [3] the it seems to work well on other distributions too. AVM official only support OpenSUSE 10.2, because of kernel and distribution problems [6].

Anyway, I followed the instruction on [1] and 5mn later WLAN was working.

In short:

Download the drive [2]
untar it and start the ./install script
load the module: insmod fwlanusb.ka

That''s it. Now in YAST network configuration module you can add a new wireless network card, enter your essid, encryption type (I use WPA2-PSK) and your password. The network interface starts automatically when the PC is started, get an IP via DHCP and I'm connected to the internet (btw. this is an 802.11b/g stick, with up to 125MBit/s and WPA2).

I summary, the stick works very well, it never has been so easy to configure a WLAN network.

Some recommendations to AVM [4]:

Put the linux driver on the stick. I don't see any reason why Windows driver are on the stick and Linux driver are not.
Write on the box that Linux is supported, at least OpenSUSE 10.2
Use a vmware server with few Linux distributions (Debian, Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, ...) and check the driver. It probably will work well with most of them.

[1] http://de.opensuse.org/SDB:AVM_Fritz!WLAN_Stick_USB
[2] http://www.avm.de/files/cardware/fritzwlanusb.stick/linux/suse.10.2/fwlanusb-1.00.00.tar.gz
[3] http://wiki.ubuntuusers.de/FRITZ!WLAN_USB_Stick
[4] http://www.avm.de/de/
[5] http://www.avm.de/de/Service/Service-Portale/Service-Portal/index.php?portal=FRITZ!WLAN_USB_Stick
[6] http://www.avm.de/de/Service/Service-Portale/Service-Portal/News_und_Ausblick/wlan_stick_linux.php?portal=FRITZ!WLAN_USB_Stick

Labels: Linux