Ok. As some may know, I started with this thread. I got this card as a "play with this and tell us what you think" kind of thing. I've reached an all-time high on frustration with it.

So I've decided "Screw it" and am going to buy my own. I've comtemplated the NetGear MA401 but am looking for some advice from those who have been using their cards with Slack 9.1. So...

Which cards and how successful?

Don't have slack 9.1 installed on anything yet, but I do have some cards working with 9.0, and the distros I'm using. Re: the lost computer, first: LOL! but if the sound works, can you ssh into it and then turn up the sound and cat a sound file to the /dev/dsp, or whatever the sound device is?

the original dwl-650 is an out-of-the-box successful experience, to get one you'll probably have to go on ebay or something similar where they show you a picture of the device and you can inquire as to it's details, it had the triangular, "axe-head" looking antenna housing on it. I've also read right here a few times that the ma401 is the same, though mine has not yet come in the mail.

As for cards that work, but only with 3rdparty modules that you typically have to download/compile, I've got 2 admtek based cards, one cardbus, one pci that work with the source code on admtek's site, they are a bit quirky sometimes but do work reliably. I've also got an atmel based belkin 16bit pcmcia card that works with the atmelwlandriver project source code from sourceforge.net, and I've also got a couple of ti acx100 based cards ("+" cards that work nicely with the acx100 project's source also on sourceforge.net. Don't be put off by the compiling thing, you don't have to be a programmer, you just have to have the supporting things set up correctly and their makefile does the real work for you.

ps: as for the original usr card you talked about in the other thread, I haven't tried it yet, but linuxant.com has developed a driver-loader that uses the windows drivers that come with the card and loads them into linux (icky, but if you have no other choice...), you may want to see if your card is supported there.

I use a linksys wpc11 version 3. the version is important. you'll have more trouble with ver 4. version 3 is a prism2 chipset which is well supported.

If you want a great card that is easy to set up (flawless driver support), go for a cisco--they are expensive, but you can get the older model (340's I think) off ebay for 40-50 bucks...