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I'm looking for some directions on where a good place is to start, on a project that I am starting.

Basically I'm looking to make a stripped down OS that:

  1. Transmits a wireless signal.
  2. Picks up that signal.

How would one go about this.

Any directions?

Thanks!

EDIT

I guess it would just be an embedded device. Part 1 would be like a "wireless card" that would run on its own and just "boot up" and look for a predetermined router or something and connect to it. Then the part that catches the signal would allow it to connect. That's it. I figured that the "router" part could be loaded on a computer.

Kevdog777
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Monty
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    What architecture will you be running on? Is this project based on a laptop or an embedded device or other? Does starting a ad-hoc network and connecting to wifi qualify as an OS you would agree to? In that case, any minimal installation like Slax would be OK. –  Mar 23 '12 at 20:48
  • If this is all that the OS will be doing what do you need an OS for? That's what wireless cards do. – Karlson Mar 23 '12 at 20:57
  • @Nunoxic: Slax is meant as a 'portable' Slackware, something awesome when running live on a full PC or WorkStation. Slax is not an exact fit, for something you would use in embedded devices. While you could customize it for any purpose just fine, you would save work looking for something more appropriate. – J. M. Becker Mar 24 '12 at 02:09

1 Answers1

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You need a very basic OS, you choices are very much dictated by your Architecture. Another major concern is if this will be an embedded system, or more general purpose. I don't know your specific situation, so I'm unable to narrow the scope.

I'm also not sure what your wireless requirements are, did you mean something that receives a wireless transmission and then re-transmits. Such as in a wireless repeater? Or something that connects to a wireless network, then creates a completely new network using the connected network as a gateway? Either way any of the wireless router distro's would suffice. Such as, Tomato, DD-WRT, or OpenWRT.

You are not really asking for an 'OS', your asking for a distro right? As you might have heard, Linux could run on almost any arch. Compile GNU, and now you have GNU/Linux. In reality, it's much easier said than done. The distro concept, really avoids the headache. I'll assume your looking for an embedded device distro, not a general purpose. Any of the 'regular' distro's, would obviously need a custom minimal installation. Here is a small list, you should research thoroughly before attempting an installation.

I386 or X86_64

Debian, Ubuntu, Gentoo, Arch, Slitaz, tinycore, or rPath

Armel or Armhf

Debian, Ubuntu, Gentoo, or OpenWRT

Slitaz-Arm, is very experimental last I checked. Hopefully we can get a proper embedded Distro in the non-X86 Arena.

Other, MIPS ...etc

Debian, Gentoo, OpenWRT, ... Your choices are very limited.

Community
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J. M. Becker
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