# Wireless network card recommendations?

## weazy

I am going to add a wireless network card via pcmcia, can you folks give any recommendations on best product to choose based on experience? I appreciate your response.

----------

## Marajin

Many wireless cards can be made to work with a lot of playing around and employing large sticks to beat things into compliance.

At best you need to decide what you want from wireless before you ask what to choose for compatability.

Do you want speedy wireless or proven wireless? (802.11g or 11b respectively)

For the record I use an 802.11b wireless NIC, it's a Belkin F5D6020u

There is no default support from it but the atmel drivers (see sourceforge) support it nicely. It runs as well as/better than/ windows support for it.

I also have full 128bit WEP enabled.

Supports Managed (Infrastructure) and Ad-Hoc modes...

It's easily set up using the iwconfig tools...

just

iwconfig ethx key <blah>

iwconfig ethx key on

dhcpcd eth1

and away you bounce.

Just as long as you have drivers for it  :Razz: 

----------

## hygge

im also looking for a wireless card. i'il probably stick to the b-standard. are there any pci (or isa cards) that work well in linux?

----------

## Marajin

I believe most prism2 cards should work using the orinoco/prism2 drivers...

----------

## hygge

okey. can you give me a model fron dlink, 3com or netgear?

----------

## Marajin

Hang on.... will have a browse..

Waiting for KDE3.1.2 to compile anyway   :Twisted Evil: 

----------

## Marajin

Newp, Can't find anything of the kind really.

I think it's more a matter of buy it and then make it work. And if you fail take it back.

There is lots of support for various wireless cards..

Some good googling and a bit of patiences should get you results, even if they aren't supported out of the box....

But you should probably google to see if people have used them on linux first, if you find one that interests you.. (I didn't, but I got lucky, my card (PCMCIA) is actually supported if you install the atmel drivers (sourceforge thing)

----------

## Sargon

 *hygge wrote:*   

> okey. can you give me a model fron dlink, 3com or netgear?

 

I use the DWL-520 (pci card) successfully. AFAIK, DLink doesn't produce the card of this type anymore and replaced it with the DWL-520+ (note the plus), which unfortunately doesn't run with Linux yet. (the chipset is not prism-based anymore)

I don't know how it is in your part of the world but I initially received the incompatible plus-model when I ordered the 520 model. Just a warning..  :Smile: 

Sargon

----------

## Marajin

 *Quote:*   

>  with the DWL-520+ (note the plus), which unfortunately doesn't run with Linux yet. (the chipset is not prism-based anymore) 

 

Odd, I thought it was prism2.5 but annnyway...

I know Belkin PCMCIA cards work pretty well..... the F5D6000 is supported out of the box with the Linux kernel as of 2.4.18 I think.

The F5D6020 is supported although I forget by what

the F5D6020u (note the u) requiresthe atmel WLAN drivers, but they compile straight off as long as you have the right source hanging around.

I don't really know much about the PCI cards, I only have PCMCIA cards... I would figure support is of a pretty similar level...

----------

## weazy

well i am looking for the 11b model. This laptop will be in a university setting. I appreciate the feedback thus far.

----------

## Sargon

 *Marajin wrote:*   

>  *Quote:*    with the DWL-520+ (note the plus), which unfortunately doesn't run with Linux yet. (the chipset is not prism-based anymore)  
> 
> Odd, I thought it was prism2.5 but anyway...
> 
> 

 

Here's a good link: http://www.seattlewireless.net/index.cgi/DlinkDwl520plus

The DWL-520+ seems to have a ACX100 chipset. According to their page, there's a sourceforge project underway, but, well, it's not finished yet.

According to this site, there's even 2 other versions of the "DWL-520" card available, with some problems of course...

I wish the manufactors would not make Linux-life so hard in this respect... switching the chipset w/o chaning the name of the card is not really nice....

Sargon

----------

## Spida

3com 3cshp196 do work, 3c62092a should work, too

the reference is 

http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/Linux/Linux.Wireless.drivers.html

----------

## Marajin

 *Quote:*   

> I wish the manufactors would not make Linux-life so hard in this respect... switching the chipset w/o chaning the name of the card is not really nice....

 

 That's /exactly/ what Belkin did.

The F5D6020 and the F5D6020u are entirely different chipsets... And thewindows configuration tool is a bit dodgy. It might work, then again it might just fail to load without errors... I had great fun configuring my mother's WinXP laptop, believe you me.

Maybe in the future (If linux continues to grow) Manufacturers will make the effort to provide their own drivers. Admittedly we are seeing this already, with a vague effort by ATi, a good effort by Nvidia, Alcatel, some other modem types, and so on... My server's motherboard came with onboard RAID, and they actually give the util for controlling it AND instructions on how to install + use it.....Still, Linux support is hugely lacking.

We live in hope  :Wink: 

----------

## DefconAlpha

Nice wireless is Cisco, but expensive.

Good, cheap, compatible wireless is Orinoco Gold PC Card (128 Bit Encryption): http://www.lanstreet.com/productpage.cfm?prodid=487

And i believe that any PCI-to-PCMCIA adapter will work, regardless of the brand.

----------

## weazy

what do you know abt driver support for this orinoco? do i need to add the drivers or does the kernel already have them? this card looks like what i am after.

----------

## hygge

my orinoco compatible avaya card works just fine with lucents own driver!

----------

## Marajin

Orinoco drivers are built into the Kernel

----------

## weazy

thanks for the responses.

----------

## jthj

Has anybody tried the Linksys WPC11 in linux?

----------

## reaz82

i am trying to get my Belkin F5D6020 ver. 2 to work on my laptop

every time i do a modprobe i82365 it crashes.. sometimes after

recompiling my kernel and doing what not.. i am able to go beyond

that but i do not see a ethx interface.. what am i doing wrong?

please help..

----------

## tdb

 *reaz82 wrote:*   

> i am trying to get my Belkin F5D6020 ver. 2 to work on my laptop
> 
> every time i do a modprobe i82365 it crashes.. sometimes after
> 
> recompiling my kernel and doing what not.. i am able to go beyond
> ...

 

ah yes, the F5D6020ver.2, it's a bitch of a card to get working. It uses the Atmel chipset, so use the drivers from atmelwlandriver.sourceforge.net. Google around here for a post I made to get it working. (check the mailing list archives at the site too.) Get ready for some headaches...

----------

## bryon

I would have to suggest to either prism2 (cheep and very good support), or cisco (more expensive).  It depends if you are willing to spend a little more money to get the more powerful cisco cxard or just go with the genteric prism2 card.  I have a cisco 350 and a Compaq WL110, I am very happy with both of them.  The Compaq card only has a mix of .5watts while the Cisco card can do up to one watt of transmit power.

----------

## jay

I have the NETGEAR MA401 working in my laptop. It has an Intersil chipset and can be used with the PCMCIA_CS package. It works fine with hotplug too.

----------

## Koon

If you are security-oriented and want to play/test with AirSnort and the like you should get a card with RF monitor mode support :

* Cisco Aironet

* Prism2 based cards using patched wlan-ng-0.1.13 drivers, or wlan-ng-0.1.14-preX drivers (no need for patch)

* Orinoco cards and clones using patched orinoco_cs 0.09b drivers

(cut'n paste from AirSnort page).

-K

----------

## Rroet

I have had good experiences with:

- E-tech wireless pcmcia

  - emerge pcmcia-cs

  - orinoco chipset

- ZyAir 100b

  - emerge pcmcia-cs

  - orinoco chipset

- Sitecom WL-011

  - emerge pcmcia-cs

  - download and compile the latest atmeldrivers

I've never use them with wlan-ng drivers, so I wouldn't know if they're any good on that.. But I'm perfectly satisfied with all 3, using the sitecom right now.

----------

