What is the best WIFI card for Linux? Please share experiences!
 

I checked, this has come up a few times before, but enough time has passed that I think it may be time for a re-visit. I've Google-searched this question and found countless charts, but I'm looking for specific experiences from Linux users (most reviews are by Windows users IME).

So I can start by saying that the built-in WIFI in Acer Aspire 3xxx series laptops is not the best :D, but I'm more interested in what is good (and possibly what was thought to be good and turned out not to be so).

Quantifications of 'good' include easy to come by Linux drivers (or even better, natively supported cards!), decent range, affordability. I personally want a PCMCIA/USB card that is 54mbit, excellent range, native (to ubuntu, ideally) support for $30 ;) but acknowledge that is asking a lot.

Stories about cards that required a major work around to get to work, but worked very well in the end would be on-topic, but questions not relating to a previous post would likely not be.

Thanks for sharing!

JazzLad

PS: My own experience is here: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...d.php?t=436449

I recently bought an atheros AR5212 802.11abg mini pci card off of ebay for around $25. I have been very happy with it, and it has worked with the MADWIFI drivers. I didn't have to do anything major to get it to work. Ubuntu worked 'right out of the box' and when using the madwifi dkms module in pclinuxos, it has worked flawlessly, regardless of kernel.

I replaced the broadcomm card that my laptop came with. Although ndiswrapper isn't hard to use, I never got accurate signal strength readings (it would show 100% even if I was barely connected to an access point). Plus, I wanted hardware that was better supported.

Ahh, so that wasn't just my experience :)

Thanks for the post!

I did a rather extensive search (ebay, google) for that card and didn't find anything :(

Good find for ~$25!

I have a rather opposite experience as petespin27. I recently bought a card with the AR5212 802.11abg (Netgear WG511U). The madwifi driver works fine but I get lousy range - 30% connection strength from roughly 20 feet from the AP and no obstales in the path.

My Netgear WG511 802.11g with a Marvell chip requires ndiswrapper but it works great.

Interesting. Once you solve your driver issue with ndiswrapper, what do you use for wireless software? Do you typically only use one AP or do you move about a bit? I got my crummy broadcomm working at home once (under SuSE) but it never worked right anywhere else (using kwifimanager).

NDISwrapper isn't much of a problem. The only trick is finding a version that doesn't crash. For me the current 0.14 is working nicely. The only wireless software is the wireless tools package that provides iwconfig, iwlist and such.

After that it's just a matter of connecting to an AP. Once the connection is established it should be ready to use. I use it at home and at work. I connect to the APs statically and I don't use DHCP so that my ISP-provided DNS server entries in /etc/resolv.conf don't get overwritten.

i prefer you go for an intel pro wireless cards , they have gud support and are easily installable. I gt a intel pro 3945abg wireless card...

If you want to find the atheros card, do an ebay search 'atheros mini pci' and you will find about 79 cards.

Intel pro cards can be found similarly 'intel pro wireless mini pci'
I have also seen those readily available at nearly any big retail computer site (e.g. newegg) Price range $25-$40 dollars.

I use a Hawking HWC54D on my machine. I've tested a number of distros with this card, and it does work out of the box with Ubuntu.

This card uses the RT2500 chipset. The only problem I've found with this is that the current Linux driver for RT2500 does not support WPA encryption.

Thanks for the info, popping open my new laptop makes me irrationally nervous :) but it is definately something to consider!

I like the orinoco silver card. It uses the native drivers in the kernel. Will work with all distros I have tried;
Orinoco silver ebay

I'm currently using a (PCMCIA) D-Link DWL-G650 Rev.B4, which I believe uses the Atheros AR5001G chipset.PCBAY

It uses Madwifi, but if you've got your kernel sources (etc.) it's not a big deal.

Edit:
Nevermind this edit, I don't know WHAT I was thinking. :rolleyes:

JazzLad,

my recommendation is don't get anything that requires madwifi or ndiswrapper or any of that stuff. Save yourself a hassle and get a card that is natively supported by the linux-kernel. Either your distro will automatically have it working you, or you can just enable the module in your kernel and WHAM-O, working wirless -no third or fourth steps necessary.

Any card with an orinoco or prism2 chipset will work. Also, these cards usually have capabilities that the others don't, for example, they are capable of monitor mode and some other cool things that you'll find useful (especially from a laptop)

I'd get a proxim orinoco gold card from ebay. They can be found for a great price. Their range is terrific, and if you aren't satisfied, there is a place in the end of the card to attach antennae hardware (I've seen tutorials online where people have made their own hardware for this, but the native range is really fine unless you are wardriving or need some super-range, or something like that)

fatblueduck,

Awesome advice, that is prolly what I will do. I can theoretically get the junk that is already in my laptop running w/ ndiswrapper, but it is a pain. Good native support is the primary thing I was/am concerned with.