PCI wireless card

[sharmaravi]

I need a pci wireless adaptor for my desktop. Can anyone please tell me which one to buy as not all work with linux. I have kernel 2.6.7 on my pc. I read so many posts about this in the forum but all of them led me to more confusion. All I want is the card name, model, rev. etc details which works.

Cheers

[thedoc]

The 'optimum' choice would be a Prism54 based card because the driver (though not the firmware) is built into the kernel. However, I haven't found any widely available Prism54 PCI Cards (for cardbus, try the Netgear something-511)

So the second-best choice is Atheros-based. You don't have to rely on loading windows drivers (UGGGHHH) but the drivers are partially closed source. Try the Netgear WG311 PCI Card.

The drivers are in the portage tree and are called madwifi-drivers (there is also madwifi-tools) - the only thing is that there is an issue compiling them in 2.6.8, that has probably been fixed in the ebuilds though.

Good Luck

Mike

[airflow]

I recommend NOT to take the WG311, as there are different versions of this hardware, the newer v2 using another chipset (NOT atheros). I use a Netgear MA311 quite a while now. It uses a prism-chipset, which I can recommend - working without problems since the beginning. With the hostap-driver it even supports monitor and master-mode. The only problem is that it's hard to find nowadays...

bye,
airflow[list=][/list]

[Atraxani]

[Rikai]

I'd recommend an rt2500-based card. The Linksys WMP54Gv4 comes to find, should be easy to find at your local bbuy or whatever. It's drivers have been released open source by ralink (the chipset manufacturer), and they work pretty well. All it takes to get the card working in gentoo is an "emerge rt2500". From there, its just standard setup. It even supports WPAPSK TKIP/AES natively, if security is a big deal.

There are some limitations of the hardware if you plan on going wardriving (iirc), but as you asked for a PCI card, I'd imagine that's not an issue

[MrUlterior]

I would _NOT_ recommend anything with the Ralink rt2500 chipset. I've had nothing but grief with the MSI card containing the rt2500. I get kernel panic's and random crashes with:

1. Ralink driver (from ralink website)
2. Ndiswrapper + ralink driver
3. Ndiswrapper + MSI M2500 driver (both WinXP & Win2k versions from CD provided with the card)
4. SerialMonkey's ra2500 driver

To add to this I've rebuilt my kernel in the region of 20 times (ok, not so painful with distcc across 4 > 2ghz boxes, but still .. ) testing it out with/without APM, APIC, APCI, PRE-EMPT etc. etc. etc.

All to no avail .... The best I've managed is to have it work for about 30 minutes with gradually decreasing performance before a kernel panic.

If it didn't work perfectly under win32 on the same box, I'd have put it down to hardware probs by now.On the other hand, my D-link G650C has been nothing but a pleasure to work with (madwifi drivers), works like a charm. Even the Netgear WMP54G (ndiswrapper + installation CD win32 drivers) is equally painless to install/use.

Just my 0.02
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Misanthropy 2.0 - enough hate to go around

[Rikai]

I think I spoke too soon. My card is... not working, to say the least. I was working for a while, but it doesn't work now, and I'm pretty sure that's what matters.

I'm wondering what netgear card you have though, because my card is a linksys... wmp54g. With an rt2500. Looking for a better wireless card.

[MrUlterior]

Doh, my mistake, not Netgear, the cards are Linksys, I have a WMP54G & WMP54GS - both have the Broadcom chipset though.

The RA2500 was in an MSI card which I shall be taking a hammer to later this week ...
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Misanthropy 2.0 - enough hate to go around