[wellylug] wlan adapter recommendations

Pete Black pete at marchingcubes.com
Mon Nov 15 16:47:20 NZDT 2004


'Infrastructure mode' means you must use the card with a base station - 
it will not function in 'ad-hoc' or peer-to-peer mode. For me this 
would render the card significantly less useful, but won't affect it's 
functionality on the majority of wireless LANs including CafeNet.

Personally, I have had the best success with USB wireless adapters 
based on the Atmel chipset (though mine only do 802.11b). - I have also 
got a number of PCI 802.11b adapters using the RT2400 chipset, but the 
drivers have only recently reached 'stable' status.

You can pretty much make any card work to some degree in Linux, even if 
it means using Windows drivers with ndiswrapper, or putting up with 
caveats like no ad-hoc mode.

I can only suggest googling for this info, as driver support etc. is 
always evolving, and yesterdays 'dont touch this card with a 10 foot 
pole' is todays 'works great with linux'.

Also, if you're not prepared to compile drivers etc, consult your 
distro's hardware compatibility list and pick a card from there.

Unfortunately vendors tend to restrict their binary driver support to 
outdated versions of RedHat, and if your card isn't supported in the 
kernel you will almost certainly have to mess around compiling drivers 
from source.

-Pete



>  Hi, chaps.
>
>  I was wondering whether anyone can recommend a good wifi card for 
> linux.  In particular, does anyone have any comment on the card 
> available in Dick Smith's, which appears to do 802.11 a/b/g , claims 
> to support linux 2.4 and 2.6 (but only in something called 
> 'infrastructure mode') and is priced at $124 or so, which strikes me 
> as very reasonable?
>
>  I was also wondering whether there's any way of using CafeNet without 
> a credit card, as I don't have one.
>
>  I have just moved to Wellington from Christchurch, and I could do 
> with something better than internet cafes - i.e. somewhere where I can 
> plug in my own laptop - while I look for somewhere to live.  I was up 
> here for the install fest, some of you might remember me from that.
>
>  Andrew.
>  Msg sent via WebMails.com - http://www.webmails.com/ -- Wellington 
> Linux Users Group Mailing List: wellylug at lists.wellylug.org.nz To 
> Leave: http://lists.wellylug.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/wellylug



More information about the wellylug mailing list