Wireless PCI Card-- some advice / suggestions
 

Hello everyone

I am looking to buy a wireless PCI Network Interface Card for my desktop. Does anybody have good suggestions? I am looking for information on the following:

1. Compatibility. Are Linux distros happier with Wireless NICs on desktop through PCI more than they are on Laptops through PCMICA? Getting that configured could be a pain sometimes I know, but every single piece of hardware I have on my desktop has so far been recognized, and I would prefer to let it remain that way.

2. Configuring. Can someone point out some websites/forums etc where they have discussed getting wireless to work? The commands, the drivers etc.

3. Or instead of PCI, are there any USB wireless NICs that I could buy? Again, what is the standard procedure?

Thanks a lot.

Regards, Hari

Check out the HCL on this website as a first point of call - you'll find a whole list of wireless cards other members have got working, what drivers they used, whether it needed firmware updates, etc. The sites for projects such as ndiswrapper also list the cards and chipsets supported, so have a browse through. As for USB dongles, some of the Belkin and Netgear ones seem to work, but you put another layer of complexity in :) Try to stick to PCI card if you can. As for desktop vs laptop, there's no much difference really. My laptop + desktop both have excellent support and got them up and running in a few minutes, though it's not always the case! Again, try comparing the number of PCI / PCMCIA cards on the supported hardware lists and judge for yourself.

Thanks a lot !
 

Hmm... yes indeed, the HCL is something that never even occured in my mind !

I will have a look .. Thanks for that..

And yes, even I was thinking that having a USB would complicate matters unnecessarily. I guess I will stick with the PCI card.

Thanks again

Regards
Hari

I have a NetGear WG311T 108 Mbps Wireless PCI Adapter in this box.
It's recognized fine using the madwifi driver with Slackware 10.2.
Check the MadWifi Wiki for Slackware HOW-TO.

I recommend ndiswrapper from http://sourceforge.net (search for it in the site)

It allows you to use your windows wireless driver in linux.

It worked for me. :-)

Indeed
 

Yes.. ndiswrapper is what I use to get my laptop wireless cards to work.. if you have seen hundreds of threads online that deal with bcmwl5a.inf, you will know what I am talking about !

I was wondering whether it would work with PCI cards as well , and not just PCMCIA..

Thanks anyway

Regards, hari

If you want more information than you can digest about wireless in Linux,
then check out Jean Tourrilhes' site.

Ndiswrapper is an app designed to allow you to use a Windoze driver.
Madwifi contains a Linux kernel driver for Atheros-based Wireless LAN
devices.

So you can buy a card that uses a Windoze driver, or you can buy a
card that uses a Linux driver. Your choice...

There are currently 3 "programming generations" of Atheros 802.11
wireless devices (some of these have multiple hardware implementations
but otherwise appear identical to users):

5210 supports 11a only
5211 supports both 11a and 11b
5212 supports 11a, 11b, and 11g

These parts have been incorporated in a variety of retail products
including cardbus cards from DLink, Linksys, Netgear, Orinoco,
Proxim, and 3Com; and mini-pci cards from some of these same vendors.
In addition many laptop vendors use Atheros mini-pci cards for their
builtin wireless support. For an up-to-date list of cards based
on Atheros parts visit:

http://customerproducts.atheros.com/customerproducts