List of several available WLAN cards, which one to buy?

Hello guys,

I went to some shops in my city this afternoon and got a list of WLAN
cards I can by there. Here are the names of some NICs cheap enough:

- D-Link DWL-520+ (my favourite)
- D-Link DWL-G520+
- Asus WiFi-G Modul
- an unknown card with labels like "ISC 3886 PIK" and "M0327C143" on it
(reseller)

I'd like to know which card I should buy. I know there are some cards
compatible to kernel 2.4 but I don't which. Is one of these cards
supported by kernel 2.4? Or by kernel 2.6? I would even change to
another kernel revision. Recompiling the kernel is no problem.

Ndiswrapper is a possibility but the card *must* support AP mode. It's
to be built into a box which will be working as wireless router. I would
choose a card from Ebay but I cannot wait until the card arrives and I
am under 18 years old, so I am not able to trade at Ebay.

I hope you can help me.
Daniel Böhmer, Germany

Daniel Böhmer wrote:

> Hello guys,
>
> I went to some shops in my city this afternoon and got a list of WLAN
> cards I can by there. Here are the names of some NICs cheap enough:
>
> - D-Link DWL-520+ (my favourite)
> - D-Link DWL-G520+
> - Asus WiFi-G Modul
> - an unknown card with labels like "ISC 3886 PIK" and "M0327C143" on it
> (reseller)

For D-Link cards, see
http://support.dlink.com/faq/view.as...ral%20Wireless

Hello matti,
thanks for answering.

I think this list is telling me that the D-Link GWL-520+ card is quite
well supported but that the drivers are not at final state, doesn't it?

Please have a look for me at that page. I don't understand it perfectly
well. There are some open-source drivers in version 0.2pre, eh?

If this is the case, I think it's worth the risk. In case if need I will
try Ndiswrapper. I got it working with another (but much older) PCI card
on the box I'm sitting in front of.

Can you tell me with any surety whether the D-Link GWL-520+ will work or
not? If you say yes, I will go and buy it tomorrow.

Thanks for help
Daniel

In comp.os.linux.networking Daniel B?hmer <(E-Mail Removed)>:
> Hello guys,

> I went to some shops in my city this afternoon and got a list of WLAN
> cards I can by there. Here are the names of some NICs cheap enough:

> - D-Link DWL-520+ (my favourite)
> - D-Link DWL-G520+
> - Asus WiFi-G Modul
> - an unknown card with labels like "ISC 3886 PIK" and "M0327C143" on it
> (reseller)

Haven't used one of them, dunno about their price. During looking
around for some cheapo wlan nic, which wouldn't depend on
ndiswrapper or some strange firmware to load, found cards with
Ralink chipset most promising:

01:0a.0 Network controller: RaLink Ralink RT2500 802.11 Cardbus
Reference Card (rev 01)

Got one from MSI (PC54G2), around 20,- Euro iirc, which works
quite nice, the chipset vendor provides GPL driver + some GUI app
to configure/etc:

http://www.ralinktech.com/supp-1.htm

There's in addition a project with a more recent driver:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/rt2400

[..]

Good luck

--
Michael Heiming (X-PGP-Sig > GPG-Key ID: EDD27B94)
mail: echo (E-Mail Removed) | perl -pe 'y/a-z/n-za-m/'
#bofh excuse 57: Groundskeepers stole the root password

Daniel Böhmer wrote:

> Hello matti,
> thanks for answering.
>
> I think this list is telling me that the D-Link GWL-520+ card is quite
> well supported but that the drivers are not at final state, doesn't it?
>
> Please have a look for me at that page. I don't understand it perfectly
> well. There are some open-source drivers in version 0.2pre, eh?
>
> If this is the case, I think it's worth the risk. In case if need I will
> try Ndiswrapper. I got it working with another (but much older) PCI card
> on the box I'm sitting in front of.
>
> Can you tell me with any surety whether the D-Link GWL-520+ will work or
> not? If you say yes, I will go and buy it tomorrow.
>
> Thanks for help
> Daniel

Nothing is certain.
GWL-520+ uses acx100-chipset and googling for linux, acx100 and howto
reveals many pages. So it seems to be working.
Maybe you can return it to the shop if it does not function properly.

Ralink 2500 chipset is probably the best choice for linux. For cards using
this chip, see http://ralink.rapla.net/

Hello NG,

it seems to me that using the D-Link card would be a good possibility,
even via ndiswrapper. I think I will be allowed to return it if I am not
going to get it working. If not, I will take the time to buy one with
Ralink chipset. Both of you, matti and Michael Heiming, wrote these were
quite usefull so I trust you:-) Thanks again.

Now I will journey through the city again to buy the D-Link card.
Hopefully I'll get it working. So be prepared for my next questions
about enveloping a home network with two NICs! :-)

Daniel Böhmer, Germany

On Mon, 21 Nov 2005 20:22:39 +0100, Daniel Böhmer wrote:

> Hello guys,
>
> I went to some shops in my city this afternoon and got a list of WLAN
> cards I can by there. Here are the names of some NICs cheap enough:
>
> - D-Link DWL-520+ (my favourite)
> - D-Link DWL-G520+
> - Asus WiFi-G Modul
> - an unknown card with labels like "ISC 3886 PIK" and "M0327C143" on it
> (reseller)
>
> I'd like to know which card I should buy. I know there are some cards
> compatible to kernel 2.4 but I don't which. Is one of these cards
> supported by kernel 2.4? Or by kernel 2.6? I would even change to
> another kernel revision. Recompiling the kernel is no problem.
>
> Ndiswrapper is a possibility but the card *must* support AP mode. It's
> to be built into a box which will be working as wireless router. I would
> choose a card from Ebay but I cannot wait until the card arrives and I
> am under 18 years old, so I am not able to trade at Ebay.
>
> I hope you can help me.
> Daniel Böhmer, Germany
>
I tested the D-Link DWL-G520 earlier this year. It worked with the
madwifi (ath0) driver (http://madwifi.org/). Also, the WPA_SUPPLICANT
works with that card with some additional effort to enable access
to encrypted networks (http://hostap.epitest.fi/) The support may
actually be built into some linux distributions.

ndiswrapper is not used with madwifi. IIRC, the driver is native with
some binary components. You can use either a 2.4.x or 2.6.x.kernel. I
was using 2.4.x.

Check the development site for more details:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/madwifi/

--
Douglas Mayne

Very interesting link. I will check that in the next days. Thanks for
posting it!

According to www.linux-wlan.org this card has got an IT chipset, not
Atheros. But although thanks for posting your link.

On Thu, 24 Nov 2005 15:54:43 +0100, Daniel Böhmer wrote:

> According to www.linux-wlan.org this card has got an IT chipset, not
> Atheros. But although thanks for posting your link.
>
According to this link it is atheros. Maybe, there are multiple versions
of the card.

http://madwifi.org/wiki/Compatibility#DWLG520