Hi, I'm really confused I want to buy a new PCMCIA/PC Card for my laptop (Toshiba Tecra S1) I work with Slackware 10.0.

I don't know which card is compatible with linux... in the spec. they only talk about M$ OS...
Here are the choice I have:
TRENDnet's TEW-421PC 54Mbps Wireless CardBus PC Card (802.11g)

SMC SMC2835W 54Mbps 802.11g Wireless PCMCIA Card

Dlink - DWL-G630 - 54Mbps 802.11g Wireless Cardbus Adapter

D-Link - DWL-650 - 11Mbps 802.11b Wireless LAN PCMCIA Card

If someone can guide me, it would be very appreciate !

Thanks

Here is a comprehensive listing of WLAN cards and their chipsets. If the DWL-650 is from the first series it is based on the one of the well-supported Prism chips and you should have no problem, while later ones use ADMTek and Realtek chips which are entirely different beasts.

It is quite hard to know what cards use what chips since many vendors (D-Link most notably) have a tendency of releasing wildly different cards under the exact same name and in the same packaging.

Atheros-based cards are usually good bets besides the Prism ones.


Håkan

thanks !
I'll take a good look !

Also check this list: http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/List
I got a MS MN720 card working beautifully at 54MB/s using ndiswrapper.

Regarding ndiswrapper, while it might be a useful thing, the better idea would be to choose the card based upon its Linux compatibility--Look here for a good argument against using ndiswrapper.

I agree with marcheikens, and the ACX100 folks provide a good explanation.

Vote with your wallet and don't buy hardware that is not supported under Linux. ndiswrapper and similar projects may have a certain appeal but that is only short term - in the long run it is much better to buy hardware from companies that release documentation so proper drivers for open operating systems can be written.


Håkan

Could you explain how to set this up? I have the MN-720 also.. but I'm a total linux newb atm.

Microsoft 802.11g MN-720 (PCMCIA)Cardbus Broadcom

Hey, actually, it was my gf's laptop w/ the MN-720 and she just wrote a website for an HTML Class she is taking where she describes how she installed Vecotr Linux on it (as well as setting up the wireless card). You can check it out here:
http://electron.cs.uwindsor.ca/~bansnar/
Just go to the wireless section, it explains how she set it up. If you need anymore help you can email me at tomownsyou@hotmail.com (msn as well)
Make sure you click on both the Wireless "I" section, as well as "II"