Wireless PCMCIA card recommendations Red Hat 8.0
 

I searched around and have not found a thread talking about the most compatible wireless pcmcia card for linux. I am planning to install redhat 8.0 on an old laptop (WinBook XL Laptop with a Pentium w/MMX 266 and 128MB (i expect it will be a little slow). Any recommendations for the best performing/easy to install and use wireless pcmcia card? It would be great if the new card was on the new 802.11 g standard but I can live with it if the card is 802.11 b but compatible with 802.11 g standard networks. thanks

here are the known good cards from:
pcmcia-cs.sourceforge.net/ftp/SUPPORTED.CARDS

Wireless network adapters:

[airo_cs driver] [x86]
Aironet PC4500, PC4800
Cisco 340, 350
Xircom Wireless Ethernet Adapter

[netwave_cs driver] [x86]
Breezenet SA-PX
Xircom CreditCard Netwave

[ray_cs driver] [x86,axp]
BUSlink Wireless LAN Adapter
Raytheon Raylink
WebGear Aviator 2.4, Aviator Pro

[wavelan_cs driver] [x86,smp]
AT&T / NCR / Lucent WaveLAN version 2.0
DEC RoamAbout/DS

[orinoco_cs driver] [x86,axp,ppc,smp]
[ this driver supports multiple chipsets and some features may
not be supported for all cards ]
3Com AirConnect
1stWave 1ST-PC-DSS11IS, DSS11IG, DSS11ES, DSS11EG
Addtron AWP-100
Ambicom WL1100 PC
ARtem Onair ComCard STD & EMB versions, 128- & 64-bit
ASUS SpaceLink WL-100
Avaya World Card
Belkin F5D6020
Buffalo WLI-PCM-S11
Cabletron/Enterasys RoamAbout 802.11 DS
Compaq WL100, HNW-100
Corega PCCA-11
Dell TrueMobile 1150 Series
D-Link DRC-650, DCF-650W, DWL-660, DCF-660W
D-Link DWL-650 [older version, NOT new CardBus ones or 650+]
EagleTec ET-WL300NE-CC
Efficient SpeedStream SS1021 [old 16-bit, NOT new CardBus ones]
ELSA AirLancer MC-11
Ericsson WLAN Card C11
Farallon SkyLINE
HP F2136B
HyperLink Wireless
IBM High Rate Wireless LAN
Intel PRO/Wireless 2011
LA4111 Spectrum24 Wireless LAN
Linksys WPC11 Instant Wireless [ NOT the CardBus v4 card ]
Linksys WCF12 Wireless CompactFlash
Lucent Orinoco WaveLAN/IEEE 802.11(b)
Melco WLI-PCM-L11, WLI-PCM-L11G
NCR WaveLAN/IEEE 802.11
Netgear MA401RA
Nortel Networks eMobility
PLANEX GeoWave GW-CF110, RoadLannerWave GW-NS11H
Proxim Harmony 802.11b
Safeway Wireless
Samsung 11Mbps WLAN
Sandisk Connect SDWCFB-000
Seg Communications XI325H
SMC2632W
Tekram AIR.mate PCF 200
ZCOMAX AirRunner/XI=300

My suggestions:
1. Run Slackware and a lightweight window manager get the best performance on your laptop.
2. If not, at least use RH 9.0 with Gnome vs. 8.0 with KDE.
3. A classic ORiNOCO Gold card (not the new, a/g or a/b/g ones) will be very simple to install.
4. Consult the sacred book of infinite wisdom (also known as the LQ hardware compatibility list) for some other wireless card options.

Good luck with it.

Re: Wireless PCMCIA card recommendations Red Hat 8.0
 

That's really weird, because this question gets asked VERY often. There are quite a few. Did you search this forum?

Anyway, you can always click on the HCL link at the page (its short for Hardware Compatibility List) and that will take you to reviews of some hardware, and I know there's at least one recommendation for you.

hcl page and searched "wireless" and came up empty
 

thanks for the feedback. i didn't consult hcl (its a new feature to me) before posting here. i searched on this site under "wireless & pcmcia" before posting. after your post i went to the hcl page and searched "wireless" and came up empty. am i doing something wrong?

It's been a while since I've been there, too. I'll concede that it's a little difficult to navigate. Some of my entries are gone, and there's no direct link to any sub-categories under networking. I found one I'd posted under "other" and backed into a wireless list from there :-|
http://www.linuxquestions.org/hcl/sh...=1&si=Wireless
I often tell folks to use the ZyXEL B-100. Cheap 802.11b. Works with Kismet, Airsnort, 802.1x. Great range. Provantage has them.

Re: hcl page and searched "wireless" and came up empty
 

Offhand I'd say probably.

I just went in the search page, typed in wireless pcmcia (no & ) and got 13 pages of threads.

If I type "wireless pcmcia recommendation" I got 8-9 threads all fairly recent.

In the HCL, look under "Network Cards" Unfortunately, wireless isn't a seperate category, my apologies (I assume they were) but you might want to click around a bit...the effort is worth it.

i think i see the problem
 

Thanks for the feed back. I just replicated your search by browsing to HCL and inserting "wireless" in the main search field. By the way, this is one of the best features I have seen on any website!

I performed my search by going to HCL, selecting "network card" and insterting "wireless", getting zero hits.

I don't know if this is a design flaw or a mistake on my part.