[NTLUG:Discuss] Wireless LAN card (PCI ) suggestions

[Stuart Johnston]

Johnny Cybermyth wrote:
> I have a desktop system running Ubuntu 5.04 and will need a wireless LAN 
> card.  I'm getting a wireless router/AP/gateway thing from SBC and will 
> need to go get a good PCI card that will work well in Ubuntu.  Any 
> suggestions?  Are there any considerations on the wireless AP side that 
> I should know about with regard to GNU/Linux?

 From what I could find in my recent research, you have two good options 
for 802.11g chips.  The rt2x00 has completely open source drivers 
available from both the manufactuer and an open source community. 
However, there are bugs and some people have difficulty getting it to 
run without crashing their system.  One advantage is that cards with the 
rt2500 chip are widely available and quite cheap.  For example, 
Microcenter has one right now for $5 after rebate.

The other option is the Atheros chip supported by the Madwifi driver. 
This driver requires a binary module for FCC compliance reasons.  These 
are commonly found in card from companies like D-Link and Netgear.  I 
don't have any experience with the stablility of these cards.

One thing to watch out for in general is that OEMs will often switch 
chips without changing the model name so you have to be careful about 
what you are getting.


http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com/
http://microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0169604
http://madwifi.sourceforge.net/