Status of Wireless N (802.11n draft) at Robert Pogson

Some trolls claim wireless N does not work with GNU/Linux. That may seem plausible in that few drivers were available but ath9k is in Linux 2.6.27 at rc7 and working and some are using it in Ubuntu Intrepid which is alpha.

Status of Project IEEE 802.11n

Standard for Enhancements for Higher Throughput

July 2008, Denver, Colorado, US

TGn Draft 5.0 passed recirculation ballot #129 by an 90% majority (75% required) with 261 votes to approve, 29 not approve, 23 abstain.

All 1112 comments from this recirculation ballot were resolved during this meeting, and the working group approved a recirculation ballot on a TGn Draft 6.0, incorporating these comment resolutions.

The timeline was modified, and now anticipates publication in November 2009 instead of July 2009. The group is targeting September 3-5 for an ad hoc meeting to resolve comments from the recirculation ballot on Draft 6.0.

N, itself, is not necessarily stable so it may not be a good idea to go spend a bunch of money on it until next year, but it is interesting technology. I have booted thin clients on g but n would be much more fun. Lots of products use Atheros chips for n so I think the trolls are wrong. Of course the trolls would reply that one has to build, etc. but they are still wrong. Folks are testing Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex now and other distros have the driver.

Again, the anti-GNU/Linux trolls make a mountain out of mole-hill to stop GNU/Linux but we just tunnel right through. One thing is sure. When 802.11n is ready GNU/Linux will be.

I had a real driver issue yesterday. An old PC refused to boot PXE. It turned out the new batch of Ethernet cards uses a different chip even though it is the same model number… Not a GNU/Linux issue at all. I just made up a copy of my default PXE file for the particular MAC hardware address and added NIC=via-rhine to the boot parameters and we are good to go. The old crate boots much faster than newer machines with XP. Drivers are not a mountain for GNU/Linux, just little bumps.

My Mission

My observations and opinions about IT are based on 40 years of use in science and technology and lately, in education. I like IT that is fast, cost-effective and reliable. I do not care whether my solution is the same as yours. I like to think for myself.

My first use of GNU/Linux in 2001 was so remarkably better than what I had been using, I feel it is important work to share GNU/Linux with the world. I have been blessed by working in schools where students and school systems have benefited by good, modular software easily installed in most systems.

I have shown GNU/Linux to thousands of students and hundreds of teachers over the years and will continue in some way doing that until I die in spite of the opposition.