# Pls recommentd a Wireless LAN card

## gt231

I'ld like to get a wlan card for my laptop, could anyone recommend some wlan cards which work well in linux? Thanks.

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## lghman

I personally use a linksys wpc11 card with the pcmcia-cs package and the linux-wlan-ng drivers, it works for me.

```
USE="pcmcia" emerge linux-wlan-ng

```

Also look around the forums, lots of suggestions!

--sonik

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## rmh3093

I have an orinoco based card in my laptop which works better in linux than it does in windows.

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## stonent

sonikntails: I've been trying for a few months to get my Prism card to work (same hardware as wpc11) What options did you use? I've entered the right essid and encryption key but it never assoicates. Just blinks. There are a lot of other options that don't seem to work. It just says that they are not supported. I've read a lot of docs but 99% of them deal with turning your wpc11 into an access point.Last edited by stonent on Sat Aug 09, 2003 11:58 pm; edited 1 time in total

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## hawson

I have an Aironet 340 (no longer produced), and I've heard good things about the 350.  The driver support is quite good--both the Cisco drivers and the native kernel drivers.  Basically, it just works.  WEP support isn't that good I think, but I don't use WEP anyway (VPN for me), so I don't care so much.

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## gt231

Thanks for the helpful comments, guys  :Smile: .

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## lghman

stonent: When I was setting it up, I do remember it saying something to the effect of "option not supported".  I think i fixed it by downgrading the set of wireless tools i was using, or something like that.  I dont really remember off the top of my head, and that laptop isnt with me   :Crying or Very sad:  .  I will check again when I get home though.    :Smile: 

--sonik

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## stonent

Thanks man, thats my one hold-up. I told myself once I got the wireless card working in Knoppix, I'd load Gentoo on my second partition.

Dell Inspiron 4100, 20gb 512mb, Radeon M6, No-name Prism 2 card. MAC address points to NDC but the NDC utils don't detect it. It works fine if I force the WPC11 drivers on it in windows.

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## lghman

stonent: Are you trying to use iwconfig to set your options with your wireless card?  If so:  *Quote:*   

> Q: How come iwconfig/iwspy/[random other wireless tool] doesn't work?
> 
> 	linux-wlan-ng only supports a subset of the wireless
> 
> 	extensions; generally read-only things.  However, you won't
> ...

 

--sonik

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## stonent

I got it working yesterday using the linux-wlan-ng drivers instead of orinoco_cs.  I didn't ever realize they were two different things until just very recently.

Orinoco_cs was always giving me errors when trying to do things to the card.

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## lghman

Rock on , glad to see you got it working!

--sonik

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## stonent

Just for documentation's sake... In Linux-wlan-ng pre-5 they removed generic manufacturer IDs and it no longer detects the card.  Putting them back in makes it work.  I e-mailed their developer list telling them about it.

```
Aug 17 17:17:45 localhost kernel: prism2_init: prism2_cs.o: 0.2.1-pre11 Loaded

Aug 17 17:17:45 localhost kernel: prism2_init: dev_info is: prism2_cs

Aug 17 17:17:45 localhost kernel: prism2_cs: index 0x01: Vcc 5.0, irq 5, io 0x0180-0x01bf

Aug 17 17:17:45 localhost kernel: ident: nic h/w: id=0x8002 1.0.0

Aug 17 17:17:45 localhost kernel: ident: pri f/w: id=0x15 0.3.0

Aug 17 17:17:45 localhost kernel: ident: sta f/w: id=0x1f 1.4.9

Aug 17 17:17:45 localhost kernel: MFI:SUP:role=0x00:id=0x01:var=0x01:b/t=1/1

Aug 17 17:17:45 localhost kernel: CFI:SUP:role=0x00:id=0x02:var=0x01:b/t=1/1

Aug 17 17:17:45 localhost kernel: PRI:SUP:role=0x00:id=0x03:var=0x01:b/t=1/2

Aug 17 17:17:45 localhost kernel: STA:SUP:role=0x00:id=0x04:var=0x01:b/t=1/9

Aug 17 17:17:45 localhost kernel: PRI-CFI:ACT:role=0x01:id=0x02:var=0x01:b/t=1/1

Aug 17 17:17:45 localhost kernel: STA-CFI:ACT:role=0x01:id=0x02:var=0x01:b/t=1/1

Aug 17 17:17:45 localhost kernel: STA-MFI:ACT:role=0x01:id=0x01:var=0x01:b/t=1/1

Aug 17 17:17:45 localhost kernel: Prism2 card SN: 99SA01000000

Aug 17 17:17:45 localhost kernel: linkstatus=CONNECTED

```

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## SPW

I'm using an SMC Networks 2.4Ghz 54Mbps Wireless Cardbus Adapter (SMC2835W). Well, I can't really say I'm USING it. I bought it but now I cannot get it to work. I suppose there are better supported WLAN cards for laptops.

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## ScubaStreb

I have to second the Orinoco recommendation.  I have one and it works extremely well using pcmcia-cs.

You can buy a Dell Truemobile 1150 right from their site for $44.10 which is a repackaged Orinoco Gold.  They are also on Ebay quite a bit.

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