Linux Wifi laptop guidance requested.

An older laptop (Pentium 4 about 386M memory) has just fallen into my hands and I was wondering what the 'most' compatable 802.11g card is for laptops? Orinico? Recommendations from those who have already installed and are working. I will likely put Fedora 4 on the laptop if that helps narrow down the 'best' option. I'm not looking to start a religious war about the best distro, I'm just looking for advice on pcmcia wifi cards that have good mod support.

Thanks!

fundamentalism, fundamentally wrong.

Reply to
Rico
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I just installed Ubuntu on an old Dell CPi 366 w/256 meg of RAM and a 3.1 gig HD. I had a 2 yr old Xterasys WIFI card in it that worked with Win98 and it installed automatically under Ubuntu. It not only reaches the internet (faster than under Win98), but can share data with both WinXP and Win98se machines on the network. I got the card for $10 on eBay. BTW, Xterasys uses the Texas Instruments chipset THETW1130, which is not mentioned on the card, the box, or in the docs. In fact, Xterasys is not even printed on the card. Now, that is a cheapie! Cheers, Wizzzer

Reply to
Wizzzer

Thanks, do you lnow if it is running a 'native' driver or the NDIS wrapper? I guess my question should have been that doesn't require the NDIS wrapper. But, thanks, I'll take a look for ards with that chipset. Does it support WPA?

fundamentalism, fundamentally wrong.

Reply to
Rico

As a Linux newbie, I ended up going with a Cisco Aironet 350 card b/c it was supported in the (2.6) kernel, and avoided any need for NDISWrapper or any other added software. This was under SuSE 9.1Pro, but it's *supposed* to work for any Linux with a kernel of 2.6 or later. Poppe it in, had it recognized at eth1, ran flawlessly once I figured out how to handle the wireless config. Hint: research and learn the iwconfig and iwlist commands. I never have gotten any of the GUI wireless config tools to really work for me, so I generally just do encryption settings or network selection from the command line when I need to.

Reply to
David McMillan

It's hard to generalize, but any card with a Prism II chipset can be made to work, Orinoco, some Linksys (WPC11 ver 2.6&3.0), etc. You distro should provide you with a list of wireless cards (probably mixed in with wired NICs) in the network setup. The problem with the list is that they tend to have a lot of European cards that share chipsets with US cards and it's almost impossible to select from those lists without knowledge of the chipset. The Prism II is a -b card, BTW. Stay far, far away from Broadcom chipsets. Some can work with NDIS Wrapper, but most are not supported.

You might post on a distro-specific forum for some specific recommendations. Wireless in Linux is a work in progress.

[Packs bags, feeds dog, and leaves town in advance of the rushing mob of Linux hacks descending on his house] Q
Reply to
Quaoar

yes. Also ipw2100 & ipw2200 (Intel chips)

Again, yes.

Well, it's an unfair characterization. "Wireless" in Linux works as well, or better, than wireless in Windows - provided you get devices that are supported in Linux. But, as with any hardware in Linux, sometimes specific devices aren't supported because the manufacturers won't provide drivers or even specs for drivers.

Really, just google for Linux, wireless, and your laptop. There's almost always someone who's done it. Then get the kind of card they use.

Reply to
Derek Broughton

I've tried it with both, there is no difference. The reason I tried was there was a difference in the driver supplied with Ubuntu and the version of ndiswrapper. I did notice it installs cleaner, automatically, with only the Xterasys card in the machine. Installing manually or with both the Ethernet card AND the WiFi card in the machine seems to cause the machine to hang on boot at the loading of hotplug modules. If you just let it do it's thing it works fine.

Reply to
Wizzzer

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