About two weeks ago I got a Wifly-City G2000, the world's most powerful 802.11bg wireless network card. It features 2000mW which is 10 times more than the legally allowed limit of 200mW in Switzerland (or 2 times more than the allowed 1000mW in the USA, 5 times more than the allowed 400mW in Brazil, or 20 times more than the allowed 100mW in the EU).

Contents

The adapter is sold as a set named Wifly-City AVATAR-4PA with some accessories.

click on the images for full resolution

The box prominelty lists Linux compatibility and contains the following part:

• 1x Wireless Network Adapter with standard USB Type Mini-B
  (blue top face, black rear side)
• 1x 7dbi omnidirectional Antenna (black; SMA)
• 1x 10db directional Antenna (black; SMA)
• 1x 1m USB Cable (black; one Type A to Type Mini-B)
• 1x 5m USB Y Cable¹ (transparent; two Type A in Y to Type Mini-B)
• 1x Suction Cup (black)
• 1x 8cm Mini-CD with drivers and a manual

The adapter has a Realtek 8187L chipset. This is particulary nice since there is no firmware needed for this chipset (therefore no questinable binary-only firmware blob). Also, it works out of the box with any Linux as of kernel version 2.6.30 and newer. I tested it on lenny with kernel backports, vanilla squeeze and vanilla sid. In all of these setups, it works out of the box without any configuration whatsoever - just plug it in and it works. I know that this is how it is supposed to be but still, I am always surprised again when things just work.

For those who care, this is the output of dmesg when plugging in the card...

[...]
usb 1-1: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 6
usb 1-1: New USB device found, idVendor=0bda, idProduct=8187
usb 1-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
usb 1-1: Product: RTL8187_Wireless_LAN_Adapter
usb 1-1: Manufacturer: Manufacturer_Realtek_RTL8187_
usb 1-1: SerialNumber: xxxxxxxxxxxx
usb 1-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
phy1: Selected rate control algorithm 'minstrel'
phy1: hwaddr xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx, RTL8187vB (default) V1 + rtl8225z2, rfkill mask 2
rtl8187: Customer ID is 0xFF
Registered led device: rtl8187-phy1::tx
Registered led device: rtl8187-phy1::rx
rtl8187: wireless switch is on
usbcore: registered new interface driver rtl8187
ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan1: link is not ready
wlan1: direct probe to AP xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx (try 1)
wlan1: direct probe responded
wlan1: authenticate with AP xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx (try 1)
wlan1: authenticated
wlan1: associate with AP xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx (try 1)
wlan1: RX AssocResp from xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx (capab=0x411 status=0 aid=5)
wlan1: associated
ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): wlan1: link becomes ready
wlan1: no IPv6 routers present
[...]

...and this is the output of lsusb:

Bus 001 Device 006: ID 0bda:8187 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTL8187 Wireless Adapter

Special Offer

I have played with the card for some time now and am really pleased with it. It works nicely with all the standard tools (aircrack-ng, kismet, etc.).

The only bummer is that the card is quite expensive. Fortunately, we could arrange a good deal for Free Software people where the store selling it does not make any money on it: instead of 89 USD you can get it for 68 USD (including everything).

If you are interested in getting one and you are comming to DebConf 10 in New York between 2010-07-25 and 2010-08-08, you can write an email to Ralph Amissah or speak to Ralph personally during the event.

¹ I have no idea why they are shipping with a Y cable because the adapter does not need one. However, it does not disturb and in case I ever need an Y cable, I now have one :)