P1 W1MAX Wiggy: Using VMWare to get it working on a Mac
So, I promised a bunch of people I’d write up how I used the P1 W1MAX WIGGY on my Mac. The gist behind this is VMWare hosts a guest OS that is Windows, and the host OS can be either Mac OS X or Linux, and all should be well, in terms of sharing the Internet connection, out to the host OS (via bridged networking). This will work if you have Linux as your host OS as well – you just need a Windows guest (since the bloody Wiggy drivers only work using Windows).
First up, I downloaded a modern VMware Fusion. Without realising this, I actually had a license for the 1.x product lying around, and I just upgraded it, for free. Win. You’re probably wondering why I didn’t just use VirtualBox? Its because for some reason, I can’t seem to get Windows Vista running in it — I’ll work on it later, but I just use what works and gets the job done.
So once Windows is installed (a very streamlined process, I didn’t even have to do anything, and it was ready in about 20 minutes), I proceeded to getting my Wiggy working on my Mac.
Create a wireless network on the Mac
Click the airport logo, click “create network” and just have a random network created, with the default channel. You now have a “computer-to-computer” network, on your Mac.
Change VMWare settings to allow for bridged network
Click on the settings of your particular virtual machine, hop over the the network, and select “Connect directly to the physical network (Bridged)”.
Plug the Wiggy in
Now, the Wiggy should be detected in Windows, and it will install the driver. Once that is sorted, it will attempt to make a connection and it should just work, provided you have WIMAX in your area.
Go to Control Panel -> Network Connections, and select the second connection (in my case, Local Area Connection 2). Hop on over to the properties, and make sure you turn on Internet Connection Sharing.
You may have to disable Local Area Connection (1) and re-enable it for all this magic to take effect. But at this point in time, you should be able to, on your Mac, browse the web, with no problems, whatsoever.
You just have to keep Windows running…
Anything else?
I tend to keep a really tiny VM running for Windows. Yes, the standard 1GB might make sense, but that’s too much, if all you have is about 2GB of RAM… Windows Vista seems to plod along just fine with 512MB of RAM. I’m told that with Windows XP, you should be ahead, with 256MB of RAM even…
Some more semi-useful screenshots:
Some wimax info, at my residence – that’s the Windows VM, and a Mac backround
Also, if you care how fast the Internet is at my residence, is a paltry 6.9mbps. Upload speeds aren’t that hot, but the download speed definitely is – so I’m wondering if I should be getting WIMAX in my house now…
