[TriLUG] PCI Wireless card

[Lee]

Roy Vestal wrote:
> I am wanting to add a desktop to my network. I have wireless and I don't
> want to run a wire. Has anyone had experience with Wireless PCI cards
> under linux? Any recommendations?
> 
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Roy,
Some recommed a pci-pcmcia bridge so that you can use the card 
elsewhere, but I recommend against a pci-pcmcia bridge just because I 
find pcmcia to be a serious pain in the toosh (though that may be due to 
my choice of distro :-)

I can tell you what to watch out for... Stay away from D-Link (unless 
you can find a really old version) and anything that claims 22mbs, as 
these use the unsupported TI chipsets. Also stay away from netgear 
(again, unless you can find an old one) as these use the unsupported 
broadcom chips.

The only one that I can recommend with a fair amount of certainty is 
belkin, not because they have a better product, but because they are 
still using supported (older) chipsets.

I've recently heard some rumors that there may soon be 802.11g support 
(in fact I think I heard it in #trilug yesterday) so you may want to 
wait for that if possible.

Another nice thing about true pci wireless (rather than a bridge) is 
that in many cases the antenna can be replaced, which is a nice bonus if 
you have your desktop under a metal desk.

Good luck :-)

-Lee