Recommended wireless chipset?
 

Hi all,

This sounds like something that I should be able to Google in around 10 seconds, but I've only been able to find a few old threads on this.

I have a couple of Realtek 8192cu-based USB WiFi dongles, but neither will play nice on my openSUSE 12.3 desktop. The connection will either drop out after a while, or the pc will see but not connect to the network. From what I've read online,the problem seems to be with the rtl8192cu driver. Realtek offers a newer driver, but it is not compatible with my 3.7 kernel.

Given the prices involved, I figure I'm best off simply replacing the dongle, but I'm not sure what chipset to go for. I basically want something with reliable drivers that are likely to remain supported in future kernels.

I gave up on anything realtek years ago. Broadcom used to be a problem too, but since the STA they've been a lot better.
For builtin (Dell laptops principally) I always insist in the Intel.

Don't know what the situation is with dongles.

I'm looking to purchase a couple of Wireless PCI Adapters & Found Atheros Chip Set mentioned as Linux friendly. So I checkout the linuxquestion's HLC link next to Forums to see what linux Community Members' Reviews on what they are using & have bought. When I tried to buy the same wireless version cards it took a lot of time and they are not readily available they are older devices now. Frustrated I went to Egghead and found some TP Link cards I can use. Then I searched each prospect for Linux Compatibility and got a wiki link ie. TL-WN881ND, I got:
http://wikidevi.com/wiki/TP-LINK_TL-WN881ND

Here under Linux driver I clicked on ath9K. Now I am not sure if I am reading this technical data correctly but I think this card is supported according to this:
http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/ath9k
I was going to start my own thread and ask for help reading the info in links I posted here for you. So tell me if this helps you. You can let me know if i am reading these charts correctly? Thanks and hope this helps you :) I've been at it all day just to buy a few cards.

Here are some adapters which work. Just look at the specs and see what chipsets they have:

https://www.thinkpenguin.com/catalog...rking-gnulinux
http://www.linuxplained.com/linux-co...adapters-2012/
http://www.linuxplained.com/5-linux-...ini-pcie-2012/

The last one is mini PCIe - this may be an option if you have a notebook where you can replace the existing internal card.

Regards,
Stefan

Updated the last two links Stefan listed above as that website has moved to a new domain. So in case the links above don't work try the updated ones listed below.

Thanks for the update.

I have recently bought a TP-LINK TL-WN722N which has an Atheros chipset. Before this I wasted a lot of time with other wifi adaptors trying to make a wifi hotspot with a RaspberryPi. This makes for a great mobile minidlna server.

Regards,
Stefan