On Fri, 2005-01-14 at 02:12, Nicholas Comino wrote: > I'm looking to install a new wireless PCI card on Fedora 3 (core > 2.6.10). I am new to linux, and wondered whether anybody knew one that > supported linux (or fedora) especially well in terms of a good driver > that was easy to install. > > I would prefer a 802.11g, but am happy to go back to a "b" only. (The > router handles only b/g so anything faster is out of the question > unless it is in fact especially easy). I am talking about drivers, not > the physical installation. M-board is a ASRock K8 combo-z, (using the > skt754 option with sempron 3100). > I posted this a few weeks ago. I've gotten some feedback that it helped a few folks, so I thought I'd post it agin in response to your question. It was written for PCMCIA, but much of the same will also apply to PCI cards. Hope this helps... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- I think this has been asked many times in this list. It _is_ a FAQ, but apparently not _in_ the FAQ. FWIW, here's my experience: I tried a couple of WiFi cards under FC2, and while I finally got them to work (kinda, sorta, d/l voodoo binaries, yuck!), I finally went out and bought two that were "recommended". Of these two, I have tried one under FC2, and I can report that it "just works". The card? "Orinoco Classic Gold PC Card"; it is mf'd by Agere Systems, and the P/N is "026258/A". I found a vendor through pricegrabber.com. Just so there's no confusion, here's a URL with several vendors listed: http://www.pricegrabber.com/search_getprod.php/masterid=923071/search=orinoco Other valuable resources you may want to check out: http://www.seattlewireless.net/index.cgi/Client_5fAdapters_5f802_5f11b http://www.linux-wlan.com/linux-wlan/ In summary, if you want a card that's really supported under any open-source OS with no bullshit voodoo/proprietary/kissmyass binaries required then you must find a card that uses one of the "supported" chipsets (i.e. hardware). You will hear the term "Prism chipset" used; Prism chipsets were (are?) manufactured by Intersil - apparently they published enough data on their chipsets to allow folks to write drivers. Most of the other chipset manufacturers (notably Texas Instruments) have not. In this free-market economy we all get to vote... we vote with our purchases. So - if you buy a WiFi product that has open-source support, you are "voting" for the chipset manufacturers that support open-source software - you are telling them all that if they want your business, you require them to support open-source software. If, on the other hand, you buy a WiFi product that requires closed-source drivers you are voting with the "Windows crowd". The bad news is that there is no open-source support for the "newer technology" 802.11a & g WiFi (caveat: AFAIK - someone please correct me if I'm in error here). Therefore you're limited to a "mere" 11 Mbps under 802.11b :) The good news is 11 Mbps is still pretty strong, and most of the AP appliances out there also support 802.11b. Well - I've digressed... hope this helps, and don't forget to "vote". Jay
