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waloshin

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Oct 9, 2008
3,339
173
Is the card in the ibook g3 only wep? Or can the wifi card run wpa?
I am in the processes of installing ubuntu and was curious if wpa is suppirted by the wifi card.

Thaks.
 

92WardSenatorFE

macrumors regular
Dec 29, 2008
145
0
USA
I don't know about Ubuntu but running Mac OS it can only connect to WPA networks if you are using 10.3 or higher, i think. I don't think it supports WPA2 networks.
 

ftaok

macrumors 603
Jan 23, 2002
6,487
1,572
East Coast
I'm pretty sure that the original Airport card can only support WEP. I think the issue is that WPA/WPA2 require at least 11g. The original Airport was 11b.

I run a dual-USB G3 iBook on OS X 10.4 and I cannot connect onto a WPA/WPA2 network. I'd have to knock my network down to WEP for it to work wirelessly. So I just use Ethnernet on it.

Not sure if Unbutu can get that card up to WPA. At the very least, couldn't you use a USB wifi adapter? Of course, most of those require USB2.0. Alternatively, are there any 11g/WPA ethernet bridges?

ft
 

666sheep

macrumors 68040
Dec 7, 2009
3,686
291
Poland
Original AP card does WPA but not the WPA2 in Mac OS 10.3 and higher.
My Clamshell works perfectly with AP Express based WPA/WPA2 Personal encrypted network on 10.4.11.
 

crewkid89

macrumors regular
Jun 16, 2011
242
24
United States
I feel like this has come up a lot lately. Is wpa a software limitation or a hardware limitation? In other words will upgrading the operating system fix he issue, or does this all depend on the circumstances. I was under the impression that the original airport card did not support wpa but clearly this is not the case.
 

Intell

macrumors P6
Jan 24, 2010
18,955
509
Inside
I feel like this has come up a lot lately. Is wpa a software limitation or a hardware limitation? In other words will upgrading the operating system fix he issue, or does this all depend on the circumstances. I was under the impression that the original airport card did not support wpa but clearly this is not the case.

It's a combination of both. In most cards, it's a hardware limitation because the device's chips cannot decrypt the data fast enough. For the Airport B card it is software in pre-10.3.9 operating systems and it needs a firmware upgrade to be able to access WPA networks. The firmware upgrade is preformed automatically when booting up a Mac with 10.3.9 and an old firmware Airport card installed.
 
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