On linux it seems wireless card are less supported to some extent. Maybe I am way off on this assumption being very new to linux (depsite some past messing around with Mandrake). Is it just because wireless cards are used so much less there are less Linux Gurus programing drivers for them or is it really significantly harder to support a wireless card compared to a normal ethernet card?

I think there are a lot more potential gotchas with a wireless driver, but the main reason wireless is so poorly supported is the chipset manufacturers. For wired cards, even if the manufacturer doesn't write their own linux driver, they will frequently release enough information for someone else to do so. Not so with the wireless cards. Not only are the manufacturers NOT writing drivers, they are also NOT releasing the information about the cards that would allow someone else to write a driver. There are some exceptions to this, but by and large that is the root cause of wireless troubles in Linux.

I wish I could find the post, but one of the more knowledgeable people here once said that wireless chipset manufacturers were so tight with info because of fear of misuse of the chipsets. Apparently if the real inner workings of the chipset were known people could do things like boost power beyond what is allowed. Anyway, because of these sorts of fear, we're kinda stuck.

You may mean this one (except that would have me playing the role of a knowledgeable person). ;-)

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=309945

One exceptions is Ralink - not only do they have linux drivers for all three of their chipsets, the drivers are also under GPL.
rt2x00.serialmonkey.com

Thanks 2Gnu! That was exactly the post I was thinking of.