If you really want to know if a device works with Linux, take a live-CD/DVD with the most recent available kernel-version and boot the computer with it. Execute
and check the output. It shows which kernel-module is been loaded for the devices.
For a network-adapter you can use
Code:
ifconfig wlan0 up
iwlist wlan0 scan
which should show you the available networks, if this doesn't give any output I, this means at least that there is more work necessary to get it workin, or in the worst case, that the devices isn't supported at all.
Markus