is there a distro of Linux that actually works with wireless networking?

I see many people have asked questions here, but none have been answered successfully...

With a windows PC, you stick in the card and it works. Voila!

I have wasted the last fortnight of my life trying to get similar results with Linux (MAndrake 10, Fedora, Debian). With Mandrake it works the first time you log on, then cons the computer into thinking it was removed upon shutdown.

Could someone tell me if there is a distro without this quirk, or shall I go back to the bloated corporate OS that actually works...

i got it working fedora with a linksys wpc11 card.... got a more specific question? it took me a few trys to get the setup right with my ssid and the proper format for the WEP key but it works fine....

Depending on your wireless card the wireless situation is not the same.
So, a distro dedicated to wireless could exists but it won't solve your hardware if it's not supported.

bye

It may require some work but most cards can be used. However, with some poorly supported cards you may have to resort to using counter-productive driver loaders like ndiswrappers or commercial alternatives in order to get it going. That is not Linux's fault though, that can be blamed on the hardware vendors - pretty much all hardware with open specs are very well supported in Linux.

But, as has been said already, let us know if you have any specific problems. It's kind of hard to troubleshoot a whole situation.


Håkan

I did try a more specific thread elsewhere on this site but noone answered...

Also, judging by their prominence on shop shelves, I would imagine the Netgear MA410 is one of the most widespread cards around (in the UK at least).

At least Mandrake works till reboot, then if you want to carry on surfing, you have to reinstall MDK, and start from scratch

Is there a way of me telling Mandrake that it is wrong and I haven't removed the wifi card?

Wireless card installation is not as simple in Windows as you think. My windows machine is having problems with my D-Link card. There seems to be a CPU leak that eventually cause a system lock up, and it happens to all my Window machines. This is after D-Link have spent time and money to have their staff build the drivers and make sure it works with all distros. I have to agree with hw-tph.

I was looked into linux compatibility before I bought my card. I ended up buying an orinoco 802.11b card. There are two versions, a silver version that comes with windows drivers, and a gold version that comes with drivers for linux.

It seems that prism cards are very well supported with linux.
Personnally i have the intel centrino wireless card which is working with linux without all the functionalities.

kinbote : if you have never dared learning french that's the good day for you :
http://www.wlanfr.net/contenus.php?id=46

otherwise you can still use google.

Tell if something goes wrong in the troubleshoot process

bye

I assume by MA410 you actually meant MA401. The MA401 is very well supported in linux. It works right out of the box on my SuSE powered laptop.

I had to add the default gateway ip address other then that all has been good.

I am at a loss to why you have to completely reinstall Mandrake to get it working again.

Have you tried ifup wlan0 after rebooting?

I have a Linksys WPC11 card that is in a laptop with Knoppix HDD install. Knoppix was able to detect and configure my card automatically and even set all my config to auto just the way I wanted it.

i have wireless connections both at home and at the office;i have a toshiba
sattelite pro 4300 series and an orinoco wireless pcmcia card.
the os is fedora and never had problems.. at the office there is an AP i connect to, and at home there is another wireless card in a pci slot in a linux server (redhat 8.0) that worked
fine from the begining