I have a wired network LAN in my home office with a Linksys router (wired only) and have a PC on the other end of the house (too far and inconvenient to run a long ethernet cable). I have considered a router that includes wifi but also know i could keep my existing wired router and just get a wireless bridge to connect to an empty port on my existing router and install a wifi PCI card on the PC. One thing I DON'T want to do is buy a wifi card the requires ndiswrapper, I want a PCI wifi card that will run with a native Linux kernel driver, that way I dont have to muck around with ndiswrapper, so my big question of the day is: "Is there a good list of wifi cards that will run natively on Linux?"

I don't have an answer, but I would approach it thusly: First, find out what chipset the various cards use. Then do some searches (here, Google, etc.) using the chipset name/number. Especially in laptop forums, there's a huge amount of traffic on drivers and configuration.

I have had very good recent experience with the Intel iwl4965 chipset/SW. I also had good luck with the earlier ipw2200. I don't know if either is available on a PCI card.

Also, don't hesitate to ask the seller or manufacturer about Linux support. I've had some pleasant surprises lately---some companies are really seeing the light.

bump, i have read the wifi section of LinuxQuestions Hardware Compatibility List and it is somewhat vague, i would like to see that list improved showing which wifi adapters will work natively with Linux kernel drivers (no ndiswrapper necessary), anyone want to post the name & model number of their wifi card that works out of the box with no more than a modprobe of the kernel driver and simple network config? this is important to me because i refuse to start buying wifi cards in the dark and end up with a shoebox full of wifi cards that wont work with Linux and i would sooner run my PC over with a truck before i would install windows just to get wifi working, this is a desktop the wifi is going in so please no laptop mini PCI cards...

I have a Linksys card that uses the acx111 driver - easy to install. However, the cards use various chipsets depending on make, model number and even version. I would suggest making a list of, say, 5 cards that are available to you quickly and then see what the chipset is they use and then see what needs to be done to make them work.

The HCL is always a work in progress, what needs ndiswrapper today may work natively tomorrow.

I just searched on ZipZoomFly--they stock three brands of PCI Wireless: Linksys, Netgear, and Edimax

Why not check each one's website first, then contact them?

Also, Google using "Linksys wireless Linux" produced a lot of hits.

I've had very good luck with Atheros chipsets and madwifi. (USB is not supported by madwifi, however).

http://linux-wless.passys.nl/

That list is fairly up-to-date. The problem is that knowing the brand name of the WiFi card isn't much help. You need to know what "chipset" it uses. Personally, I only buy cards using Ralink chipsets, preferably the old faithful rt2500, but any of their wireless cards can be made to work.

well I finally did it, thanks!!!

I bought a Linksys WMP54G PCI adapter, lsmod shows it using the rt61pci kernel module (and rt2x00pci) and it works great! no ndiswrapper necessary...