Anyone know of a good usb wireless adapter that works out of the box with slack 13.1?

The TP-LINK TL-WN321G has worked out of the box with every mainstream distro I've tried so far.

Hi,
I am using Realtek based wifi USB adapter with Realtek card RTL8187B, works good with both Slackware and Ubuntu and I never experienced problems. You should check a hardware compatibility list. You will find the wifi cards supported by Linux. It is not about trade names (sorry I am sure you know this, it is for completness). My wifi USB card is Pentagram ... but in the core it's a Realtek based card. I am sur ethere are much better USB wifi adapters than mine, but for me crucial was a price. With my USB adapter I have 1,3 - ,15 MB/s transfer in my wifi based home network.

Any device using the zd1211 chipset should be inexpensive and very dependable.

I have only ever used them in "Managed" mode so am unsure of their response as "Ad-Hoc" devices.
So far as I have seen, they have no problems connecting with B/G/N APs.
They are not capable of "host" (AP) mode.
Attempts with mesh (80211s) networking are uneven.

Thanks everyone. Plenty of good choices. Now for the price comparisons....

I'll second the zd1211 recommendation.

I was curious about the name so but I found a synonym for zd1211
Now it is much more easier.

AR5007UG is not a synonym, merely one of many product models using the Zydas zd1211 chipset.

Although Atheros purchased Zydas quite some time ago, it is only one of the many manufacturers who have used this chipset.

A very short list of others who have offered versions of this chipset in their products are: Airlink, Atheros, Dlink, Eusso, Netgear, Trendnet.

Gotta give a +1 to the zd1211 chipset.

I picked one up many years ago cause it was sub $10. Turned out to be one my best *fingers crossed* purchases.

Look at this
http://wiki.debian.org/zd1211rw
Rebranded doesn't mean the same what 'synonym' but it's close. The point is that it is difficult for market products to determine a chipset they are using. For D-Link WUA-1340 Wireless G USB Adapter I found not easily that is Ralink based.