I have tried two network cards with Hardy Heron and no joy with either, back to the store with them.

Does anyone know of a wireless network card that 'just works' out of the box?

Linux has come so far in so many ways over the past few years, I was a bit surprised by what a mess wireless networking appears to be.

Did you try the Ubuntu HCL? It's located here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupport/

Even though Linux has come a long way since the days of terminal land, there are still problems because of anti-linux hardware companies. If your device isn't anywhere in the HCL, then(at least for network cards) you could try NDisWrapper, which allows you to use a Windows driver with varying degrees of success. Read all about it here:
http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/joomla/

Remember, just because it won't work "out of the box" with Linux, doesn't mean you can't make it work. That's the beautiful thing about Linux, you can change it to suite your needs, unlike products created by a certain software company of which I am not at all fond of.

What chipsets did the two previous cards have? I have been having some trouble with the gui network-admin since 7.10, but I don't have any trouble with the cards themselves.

A lot of cards are supported now. The chipset is the important part. Atheros and prism are probably best. I have also successfully used realtek, and intel pro wireless (ipw). Check this website to find the chipset for your cards. Just remember that the same model can use different chipsets in different revisions and/or geographical areas. USB adapters are not well supported right now, but some do work.

http://linux-wless.passys.nl/

Use lspci (type lspci in a shell) with a card plugged in to find the chipset of the card you have now.

Without wpa, the default gui tool works. I've had better luck on wpa with Wireless Assistant, which is called wlassistant in the repos.

I often have to resort to the shell to get up and running (which is still pretty easy).

Yes, it's a bit bewilderingly massive. I would rather hear from human beings if they had a positive experience with a wireless network card working out of the box on hardy heron, rather than peruse endless lists.

I've been using Linux for several years now, and the novelty of spending days trying to get some friggin' piece of hardware to work has worn off. And progress has been such that it is often the case that things actually do work right out of the box, which makes me hopeful for increased Linux adoption amongst non-geeks.

But wireless networking makes me think 'still not quite ready for prime time'. Getting close, though.

Sounds pretty hopeless then for non-geeks and tired ones like me. It's not that urgent for this particular box that I'm going to spend days on it, and for my main box I use a good old fashioned cat 5 cable. There are so few regular network cards that won't work out of the box that it's seldom an issue.

Perhaps some enterprising geek will open an online store with Linux tested kit, no need to worry about fricken chipset differences and shite.

If its not critical, maybe it isn't worth the time. But I am a bit confused as to what you are asking for and what the trouble is.

Most cards will work "out of the box" with some configuration. I'm not aware of any that will determine which network belongs to you and negotiate encryption on Ubuntu without some kind of user input ;-)

I am very happy with my Ativa brand wireless G card. It is an Office Depot store brand of a Belkin I believe. It uses an atheros chipset. On one laptop, I need to fiddle a little. Another laptop works by plugging it in and using the network-admin tool on the System > Administration menu to input my pre-shared key.

You seem to be troubled with referrals to other links. By my estimate, there were under 50 wireless card links in the hcl post. Most of those had around 10 cards listed. In the time and effort required to reply twice to this post, you might have already been set up with your wireless. There are plenty of people here to offer more help if needed. Asking a few questions seems like less hassle than a few trips to the store, but to each his own.

Regarding your comment: checking out a chipset seems like less worry than being forced into an upgrade where even a vendor supplied driver won't work. Maybe its just me.

Have you successfully configured wireless in a previous version of ubuntu? What kind of wireless adapter are you using? Are you using encryption? Which tool are you using and what result are you expecting? What happens that is not what you expected?

Why, yes, fyoder, I've just installed a dlink wda-1320 which hardy heron recognized right off the bat. All I had to do was select the appropriate network and provide its password and I was in! On the downside, its range is a tad on the weak side, but I'm connected with it now, and it's functional at 21% strength.

Perhaps I lucked out on the chipset. Don't ask me what it is, because I don't know and I don't care -- neither should you have to.

Thank you, fyoder, that was exactly the sort of information I was looking for. And thanks to my fellow geeks for their concern about chipsets and ndiswrapper and stuff Windows users never have to worry about. Perhaps one day in the not terribly distant future, Linux users won't either. We're getting there, definitely getting there.

Don't use any broadcom based cards. They suck. With linux hardware it's sometimes better to start with hardware manufacturers. Some have better track records than others. Like broadcom. They suck. Big time. But Intel has a good track record. When looking at those hardware lists its best to see a pattern based on vendors not specific products. Stick to the vendors with high percentages of working devices and you should 'almost' always be ok.

It's strange how Mac users don't expect every piece of hardware ever made for windows to work on Macs. And Windows users don't expect every piece of hardware made for Macs to work on Windows. But new Linux users seem to think that every piece of hardware ever made in the history of the world should work on Linux.

Good to know.


I'm an old Linux user. And I don't think that Linux users should be content to be treated as second class citizens anymore. 'No driver, mistah hardware maker? No problem, I ain't got a life, I'll spend the weekend gettin' it to work somehow, fuh sure, suh.'

If it doesn't work, send it back. The nineteen-nineties are over.