On 2010-05-23, at 17:05:25, Ed Durrant wrote:
>Doug Bissett wrote:
>> On 2010-05-23, at 11:54:47, Ed Durrant wrote:
>>
>>> Doug Bissett wrote:
>>>>
>>> So you are saying you have been able to get the Windoze WiFi drivers to
>>> see the WiFi hardware in the host system via the virtual switch?
>>
>> Actually it should be possible to use the WiFi link, BUT windows guest
>> only sees the virtual wired link supplied by the Virtual Switch
>> software. It knows nothing about the WiFi that eCS can use. WiFi is
>> nothing more than a cable replacement between a NIC and something else
>> (usually a wireless router). Think of it as a .............
>
>So are you saying it's seeing the cable NIC then?
No, all it sees is the virtual cable NIC. The Virtual Switch connects
that to whatever real NIC you happen to be using in eCS.
>I thought when using the virtual switch, it still saw the virtualised
>NIC - DEC 24440 or something (or in later versions optionally an Intel
>E100 NIC) - so are you saying that the windows OS running under VPC/2
>sees the actual NIC hardware in the host machine and does not go via the
>OS/2 NIC drivers?
No only the virtual NIC is seen by the guest. Virtual switch connects
that to the real NIC, as configured. It shouldn't matter if the real
NIC is WiFi or wired, the guest (and Virtual switch) never know the
difference.
>> No, that doesn't work. It *may* be possible to do that, if the virtual
>> machine software could be made to expose the actual hardware to the
>> guest software, but it currently doesn't do that. All that the guest
>> sees is the virtual cabled NIC. At the other end of that "cable", the
>> "physical" link to the router can be a WiFi link, but the guest knows
>> nothing about that.
>>
>>
>OK, so it's as I thought it worked then, nothing new here, just that you
>can access network attached devices (including printers) from within the
>virtual machine and use windows printers drivers to print to the network
>printers from the Windows OS.
Exactly. I hadn't seen that possibility suggested before, so I thought
I would mention it. It seems that you get full function of the printer,
including the scanner and (possibly limited) the multicard reader,
which would never work if you tried to connect to the printer using
normal network shares to an eCS printer driver (CUPS). Whether the
printer is cable attached, or WiFi also shouldn't make any difference.
This does open some possibilities for scanner, and printer, support,
without needing a real windows install, but as you noted, some work may
be required to get it to work seamlessly. My guess would be that eCS
should print to a PDF file, which could be transferred by network to
the windows guest. The windows guest then needs to print it using
something that can do that automatically. The details need to be worked
out.
...snip...
--
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From the eComStation of Doug Bissett
dougb007 at telus.net
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... "You never know when your last sunrise is going to be." - Smokey Smith, Canadian war hero.
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