Linux Wireless LAN Howto

1 Introduction
This document will explore the magical world of Wireless LANs and Linux.
Wireless LAN is not a very widespread and well known technology, even in the
Linux world, so we will try to gather here most of the available information.
Despite the fact that it is very similar to common networking technologies, it is
significantly different to justify this specific document covering the subject.
1.1 What is a Wireless LAN ?
It’s a networking technology allowing the connection of computers without
any wires and cables (apart from the mains), mostly using radio technology (and
sometime infrared). It’s called LAN (Local Area Network) because the range
targeted is small (within an office, a building, a store, a small campus, a house...).
This technology is slowly growing (I should say maturing), and despite a general
lack of interest, Linux is able to take advantage of some of the wireless networks
available.