I've got a Dell D430, and plan to insert a pcmcia USB card to increase the number of USB Ports I have on it.


Does anybody have any idea as to what cards work well under linux ? I cant seem to find a recently updated list.
Would this card pose any issues ?

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/PCMCIA-to...ht_2196wt_1190

Stick with name brands, and you'll probably do ok. It seems most USB adapters do work with Linux.

Ive been getting second thoughts now and now im slightly unsure, but would the PCMCIA card I listed (the Ebay link) even work on my dell laptop ? I havent had much experience with PCMCIA cards and their standards and specifications so I dont want to buy a 15$ paperweight.

I bit the bullet years ago and bought a no name chinese 4 port pcmcia cardbus.

I bought 2 of the same. One for the IBM T23 and the other or the IBM A22M.

Both laptops run AntiX. The T23 multiboots AntiX 8.5 and Puppy 520.

Both cards have, 2 usb 2.0, 1 firewire, 1 mini firewire port.

Puppy and AntiX picks up all the ports on that card through the kernel.
Kernels are what matter on things like these. Any distro with a 2.6 kernel
on up should be OK with the card you posted.

If me. I can't find the one I bought cheaply ($5.00) since it was years ago. But this one is from Hong Kong which is right in your neck of the woods. Maybe your site has one like it. I have no ties to ebay or that seller.

I prefer the pcmcia card buses with the external usb cord because that helps with powering external drives when that cord is used in conjunction with
the card. I suggest you buy one that comes with that usb external cord and the card has the jack to plug the usb cord into it.

Thanks for your advice and recommendations.
I'm assuming in your case, it was simply a matter of "plug and play" ? I'm going to be running a pretty recent OS, Linux Mint 14, XFCE, so from what I read, that should be the Kernel 3.7.

I'll go for it and update this thread when it arrives.

UPDATE:

The PCMCIA usb adaptor arrived in the mail, and works perfectly. It powers USB flash drives, and provides enough power to (slowly) charge my android phone.