On Sun, Jan 05, 2003 at 01:07:36PM +0000, Jonathan McDowell wrote:
On Sun, Jan 05, 2003 at 12:19:48PM +0000, Adam Bower wrote:
Lots of the PCI > PCMCIA adaptors will not work as they don't have a full PCMCIA controller on board, just enough to make the card work in windows with drivers! again search google before purchase.
Not quite true; the basic bridges that don't do proper PCMCIA are mostly supported, at least by the Prism2 drivers. You can't hot swap the card or use other PCMCIA devices, but they work fine with the wireless card.
Definetly check before you buy as I have had some "fun" before with some cards that were not prism2 which had a PCI > PCMCIA bridge that after some fun googling (in the Peak district over a 9600 GSM dialup line) we found that it didn't work, and would also never work with Linux unless Texas Instruments gave docs to the chipset that was on the card. The best part was that it kind of worked, the linux box could see the card etc. and everything appeared to actually work, apart from the chucking data over the interface part. I would say to check everything before you hand over you £££.
Anyhow now I am at home I can tell you I have a D-Link DWL 520 (not the DWL 520+ which IIRC doesn't work) which seems to work ok although I don't use it very often yet. It cost me about 50 quid from Dabs (who after just looking on the site no longer sell this item :-/ ) is prism2 based and can be used with the hostap drivers and has an external antennae connector too.
A good starting point for linux and wireless lans is http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/Linux/Wireless.html
Adam