Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 102344
Cannot connect to Airport Extreme if it is in 802.11b/g compatibility mode
Last modified: 2007-04-18 12:56:52 EDT
Description of problem: I cannot connect to an Apple Airport Extreme (newest) wireless hub with RH9. If I boot in WinXP, it connects without issue. The hub also talks to Win98 and OS/X machines here. When I changed the default protocol the hub uses from 802.11b/g compatibility mode to just 802.11b, I am able to connect from RH9. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): 25-8 How reproducible: Configure Airport Extreme hub to use 802.11b/g mode (its default), then try to connect using "ifup eth0". Steps to Reproduce: 1. Configure Airport Extreme hub using Apple's Airport Utility 2. Set protocol to 802.11b/g 3. Save, which causes the hub to reset with the new setting. Actual results: No connection to wireless hub. Expected results: A working connection. Additional info: The 802.11b/g compatibility mode is only available with the Airport Extreme, not earlier Airport hubs. I am guessing here, but this problem may be present with other 802.11g hubs as well.
Red Hat Linux doesn't really speak 802.11g yet.
Your best bet to get this fixed is to get the upstream kernel drivers fixed so that this works; I don't think we'll do much work specifically in this area.
I wasn't interested in 802.11g support, as my Linux system has an Orinoco 802.11b. This fairly vanilla card was able to connect with WinXP to the Airport Extreme in 802.11g/b mode, which is supposed to be backwards-compatible with 802.11b. It isn't using the current wireless support in RH9, but is in WinXP, Win98, and OS/X. Should I report this to the wireless-tools package owners?