On Wednesday 21 May 2003 10:29, Jenny_Hopkins@toby-churchill.com wrote:
Hi, Can anyone recommend a PCI wireless card that they have found to work well under linux?
I have been doing a little research in this area recently. As Adam says the prism based cards work well (even in my Zaurus) but the later cards do not.
The 802.11g cards you have been looking at do not seem to be working under Linux yet. Or at least I have been unable to find such a card that will work.
Some odd happenings around 802.11b (such as the DWL-520) as well. the new version as Adam points out (DWL-520+) is not Linux friendly. Worse than that I have found other manufacturers cards where I have an older one which works fine and a later one (with the same part number but very slightly different construction) that simply will not work with Linux !
Due to the unpredictable nature of this my Company now only offers Cisco cards with any guarantee of Linux compatability. Unfortunately Cisco kit is fantastic yet expensive.
The muttering are that the apparent lack of Linux support for 802.11g seems to stem from the FCC getting upset about the prospect of manufactures releasing the cards specifications to the open comunity (why this can't be done the nvidia way I don't know)
It is said that the 802.11g chipsets can be told to transmit at out of band frequencies and at higher than the approved power ratings under software control. The FCC have suggested that offering this capability to consumers (by having open specs or open drivers) would make it impossible for them to grant the card a FCC classification.