Which USB wireless adapter works best with Linux?

SentralOrigin · 04-05-2009, 08:56 PM

I am looking for 'a/b/g/n' capabilities. If all of them are not possible, then just 'b/g/n' is fine if 'a' is not available.

Which USB adapter has the most success with the Linux kernel with users?

kschulen · 04-05-2009, 09:28 PM

personally I like anything with an Atheros chipset. Most other chipsets will work with either a little tweaking or using ndiswrapper and a windows driver.

Try googleing "linux compatibility" there are a bunch of sites that lists what hardwre works well with linux.

SentralOrigin · 04-05-2009, 09:43 PM

Yea but the thing is, it's hard to find which card has which chipset. A WPC55AG can have a different chipset than a WPC55AG which is the same exact card by name, but might be a slightly different version with two different chipsets. It's hard to know without actually buying it, and I don't want to buy 5 wireless cards just to test them out.

kschulen · 04-05-2009, 09:48 PM

try ebay....search for atheros if that is the way you want to go...I just ordered one a few days ago

SentralOrigin · 04-05-2009, 09:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kschulen

try ebay....search for atheros if that is the way you want to go...I just ordered one a few days ago

http://shop.ebay.com/items/__atheros...286Q2ec0Q2em14

They have zero results for USB wireless cards

kschulen · 04-05-2009, 10:01 PM

Try compex, or rt2500, broadcom, intel

all those will work with linux some may take more tweaking then others.

My frst pcmcia card i bought for linux was a compex card and it had a rt2500 chipset which worked quite well with linux and can even do packet injection and is able to be put in rfmon mode.

what ever you deiced to get....someone on LQ will be able to help you configure it for linux

kschulen · 04-06-2009, 10:08 AM

here is a link to the HCL review here on LQ....it will show some of the different barnd names and how well they work with linux.

Some even show how to set them up

http://www.linuxquestions.org/hcl/index.php/cat/10