In the days of the Wild West, while the United States was still a young country expanding westwards, hardy frontiersmen lived off the land relying on their courage and enterprise to survive the harsh elements. The cattle ropers on the cover page of "Linux Unwired" seem to embody that spirit, and quite aptly so. Although Linux has made deep inroads into the desktop, it has perhaps not made enough of a dent to convince hardware manufacturers to support it at the same level as Microsoft Windows. This leaves the typical Linux enthusiast at the mercy of forums and mailing lists for a panacea to their new hardware woes. In this context, I would go out on a limb and declare that the Wi-Fi card is the new Graphics card for Linux newbies. For those of you who haven't caught on, until quite recently the topic of configuring graphics cards had the dubious distinction of being the most-reported problem by Linux newbies. Configuring wireless access seems to be determined to unseat the leader.
Be it a built-in Centrino configuration or an 802.11 PCMCIA card, it has never been easy for the Linux enthusiast to get wireless networking to work. This title from O'Reilly attempts to address the challenges that an ever-increasing number of Linux enthusiasts armed with un-wired Linux laptops are facing. The book takes the reader gently through the vagaries of configuring Linux for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Infrared, Cellular network and GPS access.
CHAPTER OVERVIEW
Chapter 1 takes off with the basics of wireless access, a brief introduction to wireless concepts, terminology and common wireless standards.
For the impatient reader, Chapter 2 serves as a quick-start guide to configuring a Wi-Fi card on Linux. Popular hardware choices are discussed including a discussion on the chipsets and more importantly, information on figuring out what your particular chipset is. Required software and tools are discussed along with the inevitable discussion on recompiling the Linux kernel to add support for Wireless drivers. This is followed by details on configuring PCMCIA cards. I wish the chapter had spent a few pages discussing the graphical tools available on some of the popular distributions for setting up networking.
Chapter 3 is focused on getting on to a wireless network, discussing wireless hotspots and the use of tools such as Kismet and AP Radar. For those of us who need more than the adrenaline rush of successfully configuring wireless on Linux, there is a discussion on the sub cultural phenomena of Wardriving, Warflying, and Warchalking.
Security is of prime concern to the average Wi-Fi user, what with the now rather dated news story on the flaws of the Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) protocol used to secure most Wi-Fi networks. Chapter 4 deals with security issues, explaining WEP, precautions to take and the alternative WPA protocol. I wish the chapter had dealt with some of the wireless security scanners that would have put the paranoids amongst us at ease.
Chapter 5 dives into configuring access points, talking about specific router vendors and the idiosyncrasies of configuring the routers. If building your own network is your thing or if you are a wiz at soldering, Chapter 6 is for you. Start with building your own access point, explore the esoteric world of embedded PCs, and end up by assembling your own high-gain wireless antenna.
If you have a Bluetooth enabled phone or PDA, you may want to consider investing in a Bluetooth dongle. Chapter 7 introduces you to the concept of Bluetooth with information on setting up Bluetooth for various Linux distributions. Details on setting up Bluetooth connectivity with cell-phones, PDAs, and syncing abound. The chapter also talks about some fun stuff you could do with Bluetooth including some peer-to-peer social networking utilities. Frankly, I miss floAt's Mobile Agent – an excellent Bluetooth/IrDA tool that runs on Windows – I hope some day there will be a Linux port of this wonderful software.
Cellular Networking, starting with a discussion of various cellular protocols including GPRS, Edge, 1xRTT is discussed in Chapter 9. I would have liked to see a network diagram that showed how the data networks and cell networks integrated; something as simple as the GSM/GPRS network schematic would have been nice. On the positive side, the chapter is choc-full of configuration tips for popular phones and Cellular PC cards; unfortunately the focus is only on data offerings by US carriers. The final chapter is on Global Positioning System (GPS) starting with concepts, going on to configuration to finally close with a discussion on GpsDrive, the open-source navigation system.
THE LOWDOWN
This book is an excellent buy if you have ever lost sleep or hair trying to set up wireless networking on your Linux system. While it holds a certain appeal to the wannabe wireless Linux geek, I don't see why some forum-browsing skill cannot easily supplant what this book has to offer for that particular audience. Having said that, I cannot over-emphasize the value of this book as an up-to-date, well-written cook-book on what could otherwise be a daunting and frustrating experience for the first-time Linux user aspiring to cut the cord.
Deep Thomas
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