Wifi Cf Cards For Sharp Rom Options

[misterearl]

I have a SL-5500 with Sharp ROM V3.13, and hope to surf wirelessly. Just learned the hard way that the Sandisk wifi CF card doesn't work. I've just searched the posts in this board for compatible CF wifi cards, and it appears that the Ambicom W1100C-CF, Netgear MA-701, and the Socket/Symbol cards will work with no tweaking. Note that I have ZERO ability in linux or in setting up hardware configurations on this device.

Can someone suggest other cards that work upon insertion, and/or confirm that these cards do indeed work properly? Low power consumption would be great, but "plug-and-play" (sorry) would be better. Thanks.

Lee

[Tom61]

Pretec WiFi cards work out of the box on the Sharp Rom. In fact, the box advertises that it works on the Sharp Zaurus. I used one with my SL-5500, before I sold the Z. Look in the Z Deals forum (under general) for details on how to get this card cheap.

[Cresho]

21 dollars for pretec...do search in deals


http://www.oesf.org/forums/index.php?showt...=3572&hl=pretec

[misterearl]

21 dollars for pretec...do search in deals


http://www.oesf.org/forums/index.php?showt...=3572&hl=pretec

Looks like HSN is no longer offering the Pretec card at any price.

I'll keep looking - any additional recommendations are welcome.


Lee

[jfv]

The Linksys WCF 12, which works fine with the Sharp ROM, was selling for a good price at Amazon not long ago.

Felipe

[misterearl]

The Linksys WCF 12, which works fine with the Sharp ROM, was selling for a good price at Amazon not long ago.

Felipe

From a previous post:

>>I've got a couple of WCF12s. They are a lot better than the flimsy 660w and I've found them to be good cards

They worked out of the box on my 5600 but I had to edit /etc/pcmcia/wlan-ng.conf on my 5500. Below is a quote from Amazon reviews on the card posted on HallMP3.com from 2 users who had to make edits to get the card to work. It's very straightforward and I only had to do the edit suggested by the first user. think I found a link to this article on the old DevNet site. If you use the Sharp text editor note that it will change the name of the file. Make sure you remove the .txt extension or better still, edit it in vi in the first place

<quote>

How to get this to work with the Zaurus SL-5500
I purchased this card to work with my Zaurus SL-5500 and had a difficult time setting it up. There was a user that gave some advice in a review of the product and made it sound so easy. Well, his method did not work for me. Here is the method that did work.
Hard reboot the system. When the reboot is finished, install the terminal ipk file. Once that is installed, use vi to edit the /etc/pcmcia/wlan-ng.conf file. Add an entry that says:

device "prism2_cs"
class "wlan-ng" module "prism2_cs"

at the top of the file. At the end of the file, ad an entry that says this:

card "Linksys WCF12 11Mbps 802.11b WLAN Card"
version "Linksys", "Wireless CompactFlash Card"
bind "prism2_cs"

Once you have done this, reboot the Zaurus and once it has restarted, insert the WCF12 card. The link light should flash and the ifconfig eth0 should return useful information.

Other than the difficulty that I had setting up the card and getting it to work the first time, I've not had any problems with the WCF12. It's a great card but it's hard to get it setup on the Zaurus if you don't know much about Linux.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Good with Sharp Zaurus SL5500...
I bought the Linksys WCF12 WiFi card for my Sharp Zaurus SL5500. It's worked flawlessly so far in my wireless network (with SMC Barricade 7004VWBR Access Point/Router).
Keeping the Sharp Zaurus with LinkSys WiFi card by my bedside, I am able to browse Roger Ebert's movie reviews from bed!

There are two reasons I am rating it a 4 and not a 5:
1. My first Linksys WCF12 card was defective and did not connect to the internet. I exchanged it for a new one and have been a happy camper since.

2. This card is a bit power-hungry in my Sharp Zaurus.

A note about getting the Linksys WCF12 card to work with the Zaurus. Another reviewer (see firecrafter695's review , Jan 15, 2003) gave details about getting it to work by editing the "wlancfg.conf" file found in the "/etc/pcmcia" directory, and adding the necessary lines. This should get the card working in most cases.

However, apparently, there are chipset differences between batches of WCF12 cards (or so we are told, reading the postings in the Zaurus community website forums). So, you may also need to do the following in addition to editing the "wlancfg.conf" file:

1. Create a new file called "wireless.conf" in the "/etc/pcmcia" directory and add the following exact lines:

device "prism2_cs"
class "wlan-ng" module "prism2_cs"

card "Linksys WCF12 11Mbps 802.11b WLAN Card"
version "Linksys", "Wireless CompactFlash Card"
bind "prism2_cs"

2. Copy the file "sq_wlancfg.conf" from the "/etc" directory to a new file called "wireless.opt" in the "/etc/pcmcia" directory.

(NOTE: Do not overwrite "wireless.opts". It is an existing file and not to be confused with "wireless.opt").

This should get the Linksys WCF12 WiFi card working with the Zaurus after rebooting. <<

Appears there may be some issues with the Linksys card. If one comes up for a good price, maybe it'd be worth monkeying around as discussed in this post. Thanks.


Lee

[jfv]

Are you sure these posts refer to the Sharp ROM? They may be talking about OpenZaurus which is more prone to this kind of problem. I have the Linksys card and the DLink card (which is kind of bulky) and they both work fine for me.

Felipe

[misterearl]

Are you sure these posts refer to the Sharp ROM? They may be talking about OpenZaurus which is more prone to this kind of problem. I have the Linksys card and the DLink card (which is kind of bulky) and they both work fine for me.

Felipe

Maybe you're right - there are other references here and there to successful use of the Linksys card. I'll add it to the list of possibilities - thanks.

[colm]

I've got a Sitecom Wireless Network CF Adapter WL-007 and it works out the box on sharp rom 3.13 and latest oz. Good range too

www.sitecom.com

http://search.ebay.co.uk/Sitecom-Wireless-...romZR40QQsojsZ1

I got mine for £21 from ebay

[MorphiusFaydal]

WCF12 on a 5500 SharpROM 3.10... work perfectly out of the box.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16833124019

34.99 + 1.99 S&H

USD, taht is

[gregarican]

WCF12 on a 5500 SharpROM 3.10... work perfectly out of the box.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16833124019

34.99 + 1.99 S&H

USD, taht is

Hello folks. I'm just joined this board after having used (and sold) an SL-5500 back in late '02/early '03 and been part of the www.zaurus.com board back then. I just purchased a refurb SL-5500 and am looking to gear it up.

I am now downloading the Sharp v3.10 ROM update so I can upgrade my stock v2.38 ROM that came with the unit. From what I am reading on this thread I should just be able to plug in my Linksys WCF12 card and it will work out of the box? Are there any configuration gotchas I should look out for?

I hope that the wifi support is better than I previously remembered. Back a couple of years ago I flashed to OpenZaurus since their hardware support was a lot broader. But when I tried to flash to it an hour ago both my green and orange lights flashed and it failed. I have tried various OZ initrd.bin and zImage files but still can't get the thing to take

[MorphiusFaydal]

WCF12 on a 5500 SharpROM 3.10... work perfectly out of the box.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16833124019

34.99 + 1.99 S&H

USD, taht is

Hello folks. I'm just joined this board after having used (and sold) an SL-5500 back in late '02/early '03 and been part of the www.zaurus.com board back then. I just purchased a refurb SL-5500 and am looking to gear it up.

I am now downloading the Sharp v3.10 ROM update so I can upgrade my stock v2.38 ROM that came with the unit. From what I am reading on this thread I should just be able to plug in my Linksys WCF12 card and it will work out of the box? Are there any configuration gotchas I should look out for?

I hope that the wifi support is better than I previously remembered. Back a couple of years ago I flashed to OpenZaurus since their hardware support was a lot broader. But when I tried to flash to it an hour ago both my green and orange lights flashed and it failed. I have tried various OZ initrd.bin and zImage files but still can't get the thing to take

there's nothing you need to look out for, just plug it in, wait a few seconds, and then go through the standard network setup stuff. it's easy. 2.38 won't recognize it, but 3.10 will.

have fun

[Surayasha]

Hi, I just joined these forums after searching for a solution to getting my WCF12 to work on the Zaurus SL-5600 I just bought. It's a refurbished model running ROM Version 1.32. Most info I find online says that the WCF12 will be recognized out of the box, but no luck. I see the advice to upgrade the 5500 to ROM Version 3.10, but it doesn't look like there is a Version higher than 1.32 available for the 5600. At least I haven't found one yet. Can anyone help?

[phisch]

Hi, I just joined these forums after searching for a solution to getting my WCF12 to work on the Zaurus SL-5600 I just bought. It's a refurbished model running ROM Version 1.32. Most info I find online says that the WCF12 will be recognized out of the box, but no luck. I see the advice to upgrade the 5500 to ROM Version 3.10, but it doesn't look like there is a Version higher than 1.32 available for the 5600. At least I haven't found one yet. Can anyone help?

I have the same results. Just got a new WCF12 from amazon plugged into my SL-5600, configured everything and I cannot connect (to my DLink wireless router). Anbody have any tricks out there for this card on SL-5600? Perhaps they've changed the hardware in the card somehow? What command line commands should we run to help figure this out? Thanks and regards, -Phil

p.s. I'm using Watapon 1.6.1
p.p.s This link implies that WCF12 now uses prism3 chipset. Can anyone confirm?
http://hotspotter.scottcressman.com/cfcard.php

[phisch]

Hi, I just joined these forums after searching for a solution to getting my WCF12 to work on the Zaurus SL-5600 I just bought. It's a refurbished model running ROM Version 1.32. Most info I find online says that the WCF12 will be recognized out of the box, but no luck. I see the advice to upgrade the 5500 to ROM Version 3.10, but it doesn't look like there is a Version higher than 1.32 available for the 5600. At least I haven't found one yet. Can anyone help?

I have the same results. Just got a new WCF12 from amazon plugged into my SL-5600, configured everything and I cannot connect (to my DLink wireless router). Anbody have any tricks out there for this card on SL-5600? Perhaps they've changed the hardware in the card somehow? What command line commands should we run to help figure this out? Thanks and regards, -Phil

p.s. I'm using Watapon 1.6.1
p.p.s This link implies that WCF12 now uses prism3 chipset. Can anyone confirm?
http://hotspotter.scottcressman.com/cfcard.php

More data. My new WCF12 came right up in OpenZaurus 3.5.3. It must require newer drivers.