Heads Up: Potential Problems with Intel Macs

[nrd]

I recently purchased a MacBook Pro, and it's a wonderful machine for work, however the (current) lack of support for certain wardriving peripherals and software is disappointing.

My previous Mac-based setup was an iBook G4 with a BU-303 USB GPS antenna. Once I got the MacBook, I thought it would be a seamless transition. It was not.

GPS Receivers

First off, the BU-303 (pictured here) is perhaps the only USB GPS antenna that currently does not have Intel Mac drivers for the USB chip. Prolific, the chip manufacturer, does have plans to release a Intel-compatible driver sometime before the end of summer. The other USB chip manufacturers have Intel drivers (some in beta) available. Keyspan USB-to-Serial adapters will work with a compatible GPS unit and the proper drivers.

KisMAC

KisMAC, perhaps the best stumbler software for the Mac, is officially still a PowerPC binary, and as such, incompatible. It will run on your Intel Mac, but don't expect it to find anything, as the included drivers will not work. When attempting to scan, It would either crash or find nothing. The GPS end of the PPC version still works fine.

You can get a Universal binary if you compile from source. I attempted this, and failed. It just would not compile for me. I'm not as familiar with XCode as I should be, I guess. You can, however, get a compiled Universal version from here. You will have to sign up for an account on this person's blog. If it gets pulled, I do have a copy of the tarball saved.

I spent a few hours of my spring break figuring this out and figured I'd share. This is also the first time that I've had any problem with the PPC->Intel switch.

John

[nrd]

If you're hesitant to use SVN and the Developer Tools, I compiled from svn the latest KisMAC release. This is an intel-only binary. Use it at your own risk.

edit: changed URL

[themacuser]

Kismac is now a bit MORE universal, more than it was before. Try it now. So far:
Passive scanning on the internal wireless of the MacBook and Intel Mac Mini... not working. Uses a strange Atheros card, never seen before.
Passive scanning on Intel iMac - uses old Broadcom chipset, works fine.
Active scanning on all Intel (and PPC) Macs... works great.

Passive scanning on Intel Macs using USB Prism2 devices (Netgear MA111, D-Link DWL-122, Syntax USB-400, Linksys WUSB11 v2.5) etc... works.

[USGLSL]

USGlobalSat, Inc. was the first and will main being the leader in providing GPS products that support Mac's. The BU353 Water Proof SiRF Star III 20 Channel USB GPS Receiver, is ideal for War Driving

Here is the direct link for all Mac GPS Users:
http://www.usglobalsat.com/mac

Please refer any and all questions about Mac Supported GPS to us via this Link: http://www.usglobalsat.com/contactus.asp

Be well.

[themacuser]

Update: We do have a kind-of working passive mode for Atheros cards in Intel macs. It's in the latest dev builds of KisMac. You don't need to build from source any more - there's binaries posted at http://trac.kismac.de/

And as USGLSL didn't clearly point out - Prolific have released a universal driver for their USB to Serial bridge used in the BU-353, so it should work on Intel Macs.

I actually have one of those GPSes - it's great. I don't use it with an intel mac though.

[nrd]

Update: We do have a kind-of working passive mode for Atheros cards in Intel macs. It's in the latest dev builds of KisMac. You don't need to build from source any more - there's binaries posted at http://trac.kismac.de/

And as USGLSL didn't clearly point out - Prolific have released a universal driver for their USB to Serial bridge used in the BU-353, so it should work on Intel Macs.

I actually have one of those GPSes - it's great. I don't use it with an intel mac though.

I can confirm that the Prolific Intel Drivers work well.