Linux wireless card adapter
 

Hi people (and others?),
I've been having a real pain getting my desktop PC to go wireless with Linux mainly because of driver issues.
Anyway, I notice that a LOT of laptop cards seem to work fine for this OS and finaaly figured out that maybe my solution would be to get a pci to pmcia adapter and use a laptop wireless card to escape MS and browse with Linux.
This preamble leads to the question: is this practical and where would I find out information on which adapter/card combination would work with an ASRock P4VM800 motherboard. There's so many styles and prices that to someone trying to start it just seems like it would be better to ask the pros here rather than struggle through as I have been, trying to get my Netgear WG311T to do something with Linux. I know there's success stories with that card but mine isn't one of them.
Has anyone ideas to help me (other than increase my meds) ?
Thanks

no need for that, just check this list. The list is fairly comprehensive and will give you a good idea of what cards work and the drivers to use.
the netgear wg311t should work just fine with the madwifi drivers. what type of problems are you having with it?

Continued on wireless
 

Hi AAnrchYY,
Thank you for the post and links. When time permits (my biggest nemisis at this moment) I'll try some of the drivers.
The problem I had was with Xandros and it felt like one of those comments I'd read once about pyrimid power. Someone would say that placing perishibles under a glass pyrimid would extend its' shelf life and , of course, when it didn't work someone would say that the pyrimid had to be oriented facing North, or you had to rub oil on the glass or you had to... . You get the idea, I trust.
I'd keep trying all these differant methods to make it work (the wireless, that is) and nothing was working. (Upgrade to 3.02, type in cofig..., load driver from here, etc.) The card was recognized but something too involved for me to have time to work with kept the thing from ever working.
What I did find was that there were several wireless cards that Xandros and others said worked fine right out of the box, so to speak, but thet were all laptop cards. Thats why my searh for a pci/pmcia adapter. I want to dual-boot or work with vitual machine style systems, but I would like to be online with Linux (and I know I don't have to justify that choice at this forum).
Not ready to go another 10 rounds with drivers and configurations to achieve nothing but "cannot find ..." or else "invalid driver".
I may sound lazy but, I'd rather just plug-and-play at this time and go back to figuring out pci cards some time in the FAR future.
Would still like to find the right combo to get running with minimum hastle.
Thank you again for the help. BYW, I named my computer Bruiser not because of power but because I've been beat up too many times over the wireless issue.
MukeeWrench

the biggest problem I found was trying ot use packages for drivers. If your driver is part of the kernel, you can recompile the kernel with your driver as a module. If not, it's a long and arduous process that can be a pain. Or. NDISWRAPPER works great, sometimes (I've only had luck with that).

The real question rests in what chipset your card uses. Certian chips are easier to get to work than others. I've had luck with madwifi (for atheros based cards), and Ndiswrapper (for my broadcomm chip)