Wanted: Cheap, Linux compatible wireless card

[Leo Mauler]

--- On Thu, 8/28/08, Matthew Copple <mcopple at kcopensource.org> wrote:

> My son is finally learning to read, and it is 
> time to put a computer in his room. Unfortunately, 
> we live in a hundred-year old house, and the idea 
> of threading several feet of cat5 through bedroom 
> and hallway is not appealing.  I am putting Edubuntu 
> on it for him.
> 
> Does anyone have suggestions for a cheap, Linux 
> compatible wireless card? I prefer an A/B/G card 
> that is WPA compatible. I prefer a USB device if
> possible, but I won't quibble if PCI is cheaper. 
> I really don't want to deal with ndiswrapper.
> 
> Any suggestions?

About four months ago I posted about Microcenter selling just such a Linux-compatible wireless PCI card, supporting wireless standards A/B/G/N and also WPA, for only $19.99.  This one worked out of the box on Ubuntu 7.10, and didn't stop working when I upgraded the whole system to Ubuntu 8.04 LTS today.  Microcenter still had at least a dozen left last week, and the boxes still aren't shrink-wrapped so you can verify the chipset yourself.

The Free Software Foundation recommends (among others) the RALink-based network card chipset.  It works great on the rt2500 driver.

--- On Wed, 4/23/08, Leo Mauler <webgiant at yahoo.com> wrote:

> I was browsing through the wireless network cards 
> at Microcenter (93rd & Metcalf) and came across a
> "generic" (or at least "no brand name") wireless 
> card for $19.99.  The chipset is a RA2561T, the
> "AWI-926T" model name seems to indicate that it 
> is an "Amigo" network card.
> 
> It does 802.11g and 802.11n, and when I got it home
> Ubuntu found it and used the RALink driver with no
> difficulty getting it to connect to my 802.11g
> wireless router.  Cards using the RALink driver are
> among those recommended by the Free Software
> Foundation.
> 
> I thought I'd mention this in case anyone is looking
> for a cheap, Linux-compatible, FSF-recommended chipset
> wireless PCI card.  It is one of the few boxes which
> isn't shrink-wrapped so you can verify the chipset for
> yourself (if you like).