I am trying to add Wifi capability to an embedded box I am trying to design. Every offering that I can find of a hardware wifi module insists on providing a full internal TCP/IP stack, an integral web interface for configuring, maybe two internal arm processors, and every other Bell and Whistle imaginable (and with a price to match) :-( . A huge overkill, in fact.
Since my box will already have built-in TCP/IP capability, and everything else up to a 100BASE-T socket, plus full linux inside and plenty to spare cpu capacity, all I really need is something to take whatever drives the
100BASE-T (a simple UART on the main computer chip, plus maybe a few extra components AIUI) and add to it whatever is needed to do WEP/WPA encoding and configuration, channel searching/hopping as needed, and feed it into a simple module to do the wireless bit. Indeed, XBEE will supply such a module, but no sign of any software to drive it.And there seems to be no open-source software to do the job. I looked on Sourceforge, and someone has indeed started a project ('wifree' IIRC correctly), but he is only 2 months in, has no other members on his group, and no contributions in his forum.
So what are my options?
Yes, I could use a USB dongle (or better a 100BASE-T dongle if such exists), at a fraction of the price of the full modules on offer, but I prefer something internal, and may need to control my antenna placement to get the best signal.