In search of alternative wifi management software

[nite_monkey]

I recently bought a usb wifi card that supports being a wifi card and being an AP so that I could use my DS(first gen) on the internet without having to drop my wifi down from wpa to wep/open.
The device I bought doesn't really have a specific name (I couldn't really find one on the package) but in windows, it shows up as "Realtek RTL8188CU Wireless LAN 802.11n USB 2.0 Network Adapter"
Right now I am using some software called "Realtek 11n usb wireless lan utility" The software is ok at best. It is kind of slow, and sometimes when I plug in the device, the software won't work. I was wondering if there is any other program that will let me configure my usb card to either run as a wifi card or as an access point. I have looked, but I can't seem to find anything. Any help would be much appreciated.

[40hz]

AFAIK they're all pretty much proprietary and locked in by vendor.

The problem with wifi is that the drivers are proprietary. That's why wifi has traditionally been such a headache for Linux users. Without access to the underlying driver code, it's very difficult for a 3rd party to write a utility for a specific card. And since cards vary so widely, it's also really hard to do a generic management app. Because even if a card uses a widely available Broadcom or Realtek chip/driver set, each manufacturer will often customize their version. So there's really no such thing as generic anything when it comes to wifi cards.

If it's any consolation, most USB wifi card utilities are equally sucky. Many users (myself included) tend to ignore these utilities and just use whatever control panel or configuration tools the operating system we're running on provides.

[nite_monkey]

That kind of sucks. I did some more searching, and I ran across a program called connectify. If does what I am wanting, but it only supports wpa encryption, which kind of defeats the purpose, since my current wifi already uses that encryption. Looks like I might have to stick with the slow software that I am currently using.

[JavaJones]

I've come up short in searches for this in the past as well. What 40hz said probably explains why.

- Oshyan

[brahman]

Would this help:
http://virtualrouter.codeplex.com/

[Ath]

Would this help:
http://virtualrouter.codeplex.com/

It's 'limited' to WPA2 protection, so not usable in the scenario for nite_monkey, as he requires WEP protected WiFi at most. Unless he can build his private version of it, downgrading the protection to WEP.