CNW(4)

💖 CNW(4) — the Netwave AirSurfer wireless network driver, explained bestie-style 💖

okay so this is a page from the Kernel Interfaces Manual, section 4, all about cnw — and literally it's the Netwave AirSurfer wireless network driver. buckle up, it's a whole vibe 🦋

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

cnw*     at pcmcia? function ?

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

so the cnw interface gives you access to a theoretical 1 Mb/s wireless Ethernet network — and that network is based on the Netwave AirSurfer Wireless LAN (which used to be called the Xircom Netwave Wireless LAN, iykyk, it rebranded 💅).

heads up bestie: this driver does not support newer devices like the Netwave AirSurfer “Plus”, or the BayStack 650/660. nope, not those. those ones are supported by the awi(4) driver instead, okurr? 🫶

also Netwave devices are not compatible with IEEE 802.11 wireless networks. periodt. and lowkey there are Netwave devices with different wireless frequency depending on the radio band plan in each country — so like, geography matters 🌍

the card uses 36K of I/O memory mapped to the card. and yeah, you may need to increase the memory space available to the PCMCIA controller. see pcmcia(4) for the details, bestie, it's all in there ✨

in use? the cards appear to achieve up to 420Kb/s transfer rate, though honestly a transfer rate between 250Kb/s and 350Kb/s is typical. the way that theoretical number never shows up in real life 😭

the card operates in the 2.4GHz frequency range and is subject to interference from microwaves 🍓, IEEE 802.11 wireless network devices, as well as earth. yes. earth. the planet. she's in the way. 💀

fr fr, for example it seems that IEEE 802.11 channel 14 conflicts with Netwave (US frequency). they interfere with each other if they're both operated in the same geographic region, causing weird packet loss 🙈 you may be able to avoid the interference with IEEE 802.11 devices by changing the IEEE 802.11 channel. slay, problem solved-ish 👑

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🎀 HARDWARE 🎀

cards supported by the cnw driver include:

• Xircom CreditCard Netwave
• NetWave AirSurfer

those two. that's the list. iconic lineup honestly 💜

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⭐ DIAGNOSTICS ⭐

• cnw0: can't map memory — this one means the driver was not able to allocate enough PCMCIA bus address space into which to map the device 😭 see pcmcia(4) and increase the memory available to the PCMCIA controller. you got this bestie 🫶

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🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

arp(4), awi(4), inet(4), intro(4), pcmcia(4), cnwctl(8)

go read them, they're literally all right there ✨

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and that's the whole page! this lil beauty comes to you from Debian, dated January 5, 1997 — yeah she's vintage, she's retro, she's a 20th-century icon and we stan 🎀💖