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:

In Terminal type cardctl ident with the WiFi card in the slot.

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....

T-Mobile has a 300 free minute trial offer that you can use to access its hot spots in Starbucks cafes and Barnes & Noble bokstores. This may or may not make sense for you based on the density of these stores in your area. (Note: check the availability map, even though there are Starbucks everywhere they are not all wired (e.g. none in Indiana)
A couple of programs you can use to sniff for networks are Kismet (you can also download a GUI front end) or Wellenreiter II. Below are a couple of screenshots of Kismet in action, the first showing 4 networks detected and the second showing strings picked up at a computer store (looks like someone logging in to Hotmail via WiFi... unsecured - check here for more information on WiFi, including security topics...):