Another excellent card that is belied in Windows. It is a wireless-g 108 mbps card that uses the atheros chipset. There is virtually no difference between this card and the WG311v1 (which also works extremely well in Linux). While this card does cause hard lockups in Windows (no keyboard or mouse movement), it works perfectly under managed (router) mode in Linux. Netgear says it's a problem with the chipset, but if it works under the Linux kernel, I have to doubt that statement.

Despite what the readme for the madwifi drivers say, I get far better performance in the 2.6 kernels than in 2.4. In the 2.6 kernels, iwconfig config reports very constant 54 mbps connections (the highest I can go since my router is only 54 mbps), whereas 2.4 kernels can look as though they are about to drop connection (iwconfig reports 1 mbps connection).

I get powerful connections and I easily push an average of 300 kbps when downloading from the internet, meaning users will feel no difference in speed using a wireless station versus a hardwired station. Local intranet boasts even more blinding speed.

Setting this card up was a breeze. You can follow my instructions at http://www.linuxquestions.org/hcl/showproduct.php?product=624 , the WG311 HCL page.

Unfortunately, I cannot speak for those who must dual-boot Windows and Linux... there is some sort of conflict within the Windows system. However, for those who primarily use Linux, this card is an extremely worthwhile choice. It causes no problems in the system (except causes the kernel to become "tainted" with a proprietary-licensed binary driver*).

My only concern: that I spent $70 on my WG311v1 54mbps card and only $50 on this 108mbps card... :-/

*the proprietary-named driver is deceiving... it is an unmodifiable module that enforces FCC frequency regulations because the chipset can't do it itself... if it wasn't binary, people could go outside the FCC limits or not impose limits at all. So it is not hiding any software code, and it is not "proprietary" in the typical connotation.

*Edit: also, in slackware 10 (or if you have the latest sysinit package), you can use your /etc/rc.d/rc.wireless.conf file to bring up the card; here is what I have done (just fill in your values):

## --------- START SECTION TO REMOVE -----------
## Pick up any Access Point, should work on most 802.11 cards
00:09:5B*)
INFO="WG311"
ESSID="NETGEAR"
CHANNEL="11"
KEY="11111111111111111111111111"
;;
## ---------- END SECTION TO REMOVE ------------

You can put it anywhere as long as you comment out the "section to remove", but i just used the section itself; that MAC address should be valid for most atheros-based cards too

run /etc/rc.d/rc.wireless ath0 , do dhcpcd ath0 , and you're up

Is WEP availeble in with this card and drivers?

This card will only work on a PCI 2.1 and above machine. I bought the card because other linux users recommended it, but it didn't work on my machine (Pentium III 450MHz) because it isn't PCI 2.1.

-rrowsome

I had some issues early on finding a RPM that would work with my install. I'm using this on a VIA EPIA motherboard and was running a custom kernel to accomodate the C3 CPU. I was concerned that upgrading to a kernel that had a supported madwifi rpm would cause the system to revert to its reboot-loop state as it would with the stock FC2 kernel on the distro ISO. Luckily the problems with the C3 appear to have been fixed in the 2.6.8-1.521 release, and once I installed that I was able to install the kernel module and driver from the rpms.

The madwifi FAQ isn't entirely clear as to what needs to be done to make this card load at boot, so I ended up writing a script that set the ath0 adapter's SSID, channel, wep key, calling dhclient. The script is called at the end of rc.local (I'm not a linux pro, so this is good enough for me.)

So far so good. I disabled the onboard NIC because it kept taking over the default route. Now the WG311T is the sole network adapter on that system and works well.

Downloaded two RPMS from here:
http://atrpms.net/dist/fc4/madwifi/

Installed:
madwifi-0.9.4.12-16.rhfc4.at.i386.rpm
madwifi-kmdl-2.6.11-1.1369_FC4-0.9.4.12-16.rhfc4.at.i686.rpm

Rebooted and configured wireless (including WEP) using the GUI. Works like a champ.

Asus A7M266 m/b with Athlon XP 2100+

This card is compatible with Debian. I followed the instructions that TheOneAndOnlySM posted, but had trouble getting it to install. Finally, I downloaded a newer kernel and sources. The kernel was a prepackaged, but the sources were not. I compiled the sources and ended up with a custom kernel. I then went back and followed the instructions again and wollah, it came up. The only other thing I had to do was figure out how to get the card to initialize and get configured at boot up under Debian. I opened the /etc/network/interfaces file with pico, disabled eth0 with #'s, and added the following below it:

# The wireless network interface Netgear WG-311T
auto ath0
iface ath0 inet dhcp
name ath0
wireless-essid xxxxxxxx
wireless-key xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
wireless-channel 10

The x's actually include the correct info, I blocked it out here. I hope this helps anyone who want's to run this card. Remember, do not install prepackaged source files, compile them yourself.

Good luck!

I installed this card under Suse 10. When I went into Yast after rebooting, the card was recognised and ready to be configured. The offered driver was ath_pci. I only had to enter my ESSID and WEP key and wireless networking worked right away.

I found just one problem when the ath0 (wireless) interface was configured to start at boot time: if the interface failed to establish a connection right away the boot sequence would hang when it handed over to KDE. To avoid this I have configured the interface to start manually and I bring it up by clicking the Kinternet icon.

Installed the madwifi RPM (kmod-madwifi-smp) from livna.org, which worked with no problems, though the card does need a bit of configuring (ESSID and WEP).
The only problem I had was the card was slow, running at 12Mb/s. Fixed this by doing :

iwconfig ath0 rate 54M

which brought it up to full speed.

This hardware was auto detected and installed at next boot. Seems to work fine. Trouble is I think I have not got a full set of wlan utilities and when I logged in as a different user there was no connection. I had done every thing as my "primary" user (not root) and only used root passwd when requested.

So anyone got a suggestion about standard users activating WLAN?

Dr. Skids.

I had no problems setting this up with the MadWifi drivers. Works great, good performance. I also installed HostAPd, and now I use my linux box as a wireless access point with WPA2-PSK protection.

I purchased this card by $48. I highly recommend this card. It is easy to install and configure. Now I am running my PC as Wireless Access Point. I only install Madwifi and read the document from the website, with the help of Yast everything is working fine.

SUSE users follow this install guide http://www.thejemreport.com/mambo/content/view/254/42/

All very easy - just install packages in YaST, install card, setup in YaST.