Argh (Wifi travails)

Two evenings spent wondering why neither wireless card in my laptop (Intel 2200 on-board, ORiNOCO Gold in the PCMCIA slot) would come up, despite having /dev/net entries; searching to find the source code (it appears they were closed source) so I could try step through it, and so on, lead to absolutely nothing. I knew the ORiNOCO was working as Windows 98SE could use it; but the 2200 is too new for it. Both had worked in BeOS before, but I replaced the ~12GB hard drive in this laptop with a 64GB SSD and started from scratch.

After going as far as to re-seat the 2200, I decided to start from step one again to see if I'd messed something up. And I had.

I'd never installed the net_server addons for either of them. About sixty lines of code that basically does nothing at all unless a card needs or allows advanced configuration; gone under BONE-based systems and yet entirely required to be able to set an IP or use DHCP.

I'd also forgotten the Intel 2200 firmware; but with that in place I now have a choice of slow, unprotected wifi or *very* slow unprotected wifi. I use an old secondary router that is turned on only for use of any retro kit (that laptop, or some of my ancient PDAs if I ever use them again) and turned off again after.

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