Sharp Zaurus SL-C700 & WiFi

WiFi cards come in a number of brands and sizes... When in a CF form factor the aerial generally will protrude from the slot - see here for pictures of three different Wifi cards. The AmbiCom WL1100B and the DLink DCF-660W are two cards that should work "out of the box." When you put them in and power up a globe icon with a red X (to designate offline...) should appear. Assuming that you have setup an entry for wireless in Network (with appropriate/correct SSID, WEP, IP and DNS info, etc.), tapping on the icon will initialize the card and then initiate a connection. If you do not get the globe, do the following:
  1. In Terminal type cardctl ident with the WiFi card in the slot.
  2. Note the output, then edit the wlan-ng.conf file in /etc/pcmcia so that it looks like the following:

    device "prism2_cs"
    
      class "wlan-ng" module "prism2_cs"
    
    
    
    card "D-Link DCF-660W 11Mbps 802.11b WLAN Card"
    
      version "D-Link", "DCF-660W"
    
      bind "prism2_cs"
    
    
    card "D-Link DCF-660W  11Mbps 802.11b WLAN Card"
    
      manfid 0xd601, 0x0005
    
      bind "prism2_cs"
    
    
    
    card "Ambicom WL1100B 11Mbps 802.11b CF-Card"
    
       version "OEM", "PRISM2 IEEE 802.11 PC-Card", "Version 2.2"
    
       bind "prism2_cs"
    
    
    
    card "Ambicom WL1100B 11Mbps 802.11b CF-Card"
    
       manfid 0xd601, 0x0002
    
       bind "prism2_cs"
    
    The device/class/module should be at the top of the file exactly as above, the card details next, followed by the card and manfid information. (info which you got in step one).

The following is a screenshot of the Network Services tab while offline:


Next are screenshots with a successful connection - the first of the Services tab of the Network application with a successfull connection, followed by a screenshot of the SL-C700 remotely accessing yahoo.com via the NetFront web browser.



Occasionally I get a result where it appears to make a connection but I do not see the Services info, and I can not make the Web connection as above (see below). So far I have not figured out why this happens....






© SNi 05/10/03