[GLLUG] Desktop wireless PCI recommendations?

Charles Ulrich charles at idealso.com
Wed May 10 13:47:04 EDT 2006


Benjamin Cathey wrote:
>   I need to get a wireless PCI card for a desktop that will be running 
> debian.  I thought I'd post to see what experiences people have had 
> before I buy.  I have personnally always tried to stick to linksys when 
> I can as I like the interface on the routers.  Also I have been able to 
> get the PCMCIA cards to work pretty well in Deb Sarge.
> 
> I read the the netgear WPN311NA works pretty well too.  I am currently 
> look at the WPN311NA or the Linksys WMP54GS.  We will be purchasing 
> through an online company that we have a corporate acct. through and I 
> would like to get something that works (don't want to have to return by 
> mail.)
> 
> Any stories, suggestions?

I'm also in the market for a wifi PCI card, but haven't yet found one 
with native Linux drivers. I was able to find several references saying 
that the Linksys card works only with ndiswrapper. (No native drivers.) 
I couldn't find any information at all on the Netgear card. The reason 
I'm so set on native drivers because driver support via ndiswrapper is 
often a tricky situation. Sometimes you can't get encryption or 802.11g 
speeds with it, and if something doesn't work, there's not much that you 
can do to even troubleshoot it since the drivers are closed windows 
binaries. It would be awesome if there was a PCI card that used the open 
source madwifi drivers.

Let me know how this pans out. If you find a card that has native Linux 
drivers or if you're able to get ndiswrapper working, maybe I'll yet 
consider going that route if it looks like WPA2 will work with it.

-- 
Charles Ulrich
Ideal Solution, LLC -- http://www.idealso.com


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