<OT> iMac question

[Bill Campbell]

On Tue, Jul 01, 2008, Roger Oberholtzer wrote:
>On Tue, 2008-07-01 at 08:58 -0700, Bill Campbell wrote:
>> On Tue, Jul 01, 2008, Roger Oberholtzer wrote:
>> >
>> >IIRC, some folk on this list are using iMacs. I now have one - and a
>> >wireless issue. Anyone out there know anything in this area?
>> 
>> Could you be a bit more specific?
>
>I have a wireless access point that is working fine for other computers
>at home (both Linux and XP boxes). When I try to connect to the access
>point from the iMac, it claims that I need a password. I use MAC address
>to limit access to the access point. There is no password. My choice :)
>All other systems I have get this correct. Not the iMac. There is
>another access point in the area that is oddly fully open. I can connect
>to that from the iMac without a password. So I know the iMac can, should
>it choose to do so, well, do so. So why is it confused about my access
>point? I even tried turning off ALL access control in the access point
>(meaning any MAC address can connect to it) just to see if the iMac was
>happier. Nope.

I have never had any problems with wireless with Macs, other than
having to do the inital software update of Leopard to get support
for the 3rd party Airport compatible PCMCIA card on my Titanium
Powerbook as the card was not supported in the base Leopard release.

What type of WAP do you have?

>I am also convinced that the iMac is somewhat less than robust at
>maintaining wireless connections. When it shows the list of available
>networks, the items in the list pop in and out at great speed. I have
>never seen this in lists on my other boxes.

This sounds like it may well be a hardware issue.  I have never
seen tyis type of problem.

>I am running the latest Leopard, with whatever updates are currently
>available. The computer is only a few days old. 

If you are using X11, there are some issues with Leopard.  Apple is working
with the open source xorg project to get these resolved.  The primary X11
developer at Apple has been quite active on the Apple x11-users mailing
list.  Unofficial updates are available in .pkg format.  The most recent
being here:

	http://xquartz.macosforge.org/trac/wiki/X112.2.3

>The wired lan works fine.
>
>> BTW:  I have been thinking that a list like this would be very
>> useful for OS X issues as well as I have not found anything but
>> lists addressing highly specific topics.
>
>I like the BSD underneath. I feel sort of at home. But Apple being
>Apple, not all is as expected. But it is enough to feel competent.

The ``macports'' project provides a wide variety of open source projects.
It is modelled on the FreeBSD ports.

Bill
-- 
INTERNET:   bill at celestial.com  Bill Campbell; Celestial Software LLC
URL: http://www.celestial.com/  PO Box 820; 6641 E. Mercer Way
Voice:          (206) 236-1676  Mercer Island, WA 98040-0820
Fax:            (206) 232-9186

The essence of all slavery consists in taking the produce of another's
labor by force. It is immaterial whether this force be founded on ownership
of the slave or ownership of the money that he must get to live on.
    Leo Tolstoy 1891