Recommend a laptop wireless card that just works?

Well I've tried using Google and HOWTO files and a bunch of other
resources before asking the question on the net - but is there any
wireless card that will plug into a laptop, just work out of the
box, and is currently available? Everything I read seemed to talk
about cards that you can't get anymore, and having to use a wrapper
and the Windows driver, or recompile the kernel, or lots of other
things that one should not have to do.
--

jhhaynes at earthlink dot net

On Mon, 14 May 2007 00:43:06 +0000, Jim Haynes wrote:

> Well I've tried using Google and HOWTO files and a bunch of other
> resources before asking the question on the net - but is there any
> wireless card that will plug into a laptop, just work out of the
> box, and is currently available? Everything I read seemed to talk
> about cards that you can't get anymore, and having to use a wrapper
> and the Windows driver, or recompile the kernel, or lots of other
> things that one should not have to do.

I use a Dlink WNA2330 H/W ver A1; F/W ver 1.0 ( it has an Atheros
chipset). I plugged it into my laptop with ubuntu 6.06 and it worked 'out
of the box' with mad-wifi (which was already installed). No muss, no fuss,
no bother. I had previously used a Belkin (broadcomm chipset) card with
ubuntu 5.10 - after the upgrade to 6.06 I could not get it to work - tried
47 different recipes off the internet with ndiswrapped and the broadcomm
driver.

For ubuntu, there's this:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Wi...CardsSupported

Jim Haynes wrote:
> Well I've tried using Google and HOWTO files and a bunch of other
> resources before asking the question on the net - but is there any
> wireless card that will plug into a laptop, just work out of the
> box, and is currently available? Everything I read seemed to talk
> about cards that you can't get anymore, and having to use a wrapper
> and the Windows driver, or recompile the kernel, or lots of other
> things that one should not have to do.


--
As we enjoy great advantages from inventions of others, we should be
glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours;
and this we should do freely and generously.
--Benjamin Franklin
(remove _eh to email)

On 05/14/2007 06:13 AM, Jim Haynes wrote:
> Well I've tried using Google and HOWTO files and a bunch of other
> resources before asking the question on the net - but is there any
> wireless card that will plug into a laptop, just work out of the
> box, and is currently available? Everything I read seemed to talk
> about cards that you can't get anymore, and having to use a wrapper
> and the Windows driver, or recompile the kernel, or lots of other
> things that one should not have to do.

IMHO, If you have installed kernel sources, try searching code in the
/usr/src/linux-<kversion>/drivers/net/wireless/ for out-of-the-box
supported wireless cards, though howsoever obsolete these may be.

I for one would prefer Intel's PRO/Wireless 2200 for PCI/Mini-PCI slots
or ZyDAS's ZD1201 based cards for USB interfaces.

OTOH, If you somehow manage to compile madwifi/madwifi-ng drivers for
Linux, the cards based on Atheros's chipsets are the best otherwise.

Last, but not the least, plz don't buy cards based Realtek's RTL8180
and, or RTL8185; although the Open Source (GPLed) drivers for these are
available, but no one is actively working on these not even the Realtek
people and, or me

--
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