Anthony Barker's Weblog on Linux, Technology & the Economy

Best wifi card for linux

I've been looking for a good wifi card for my laptop and frankly it is a pain. Linux support is really hit and miss and I would like to buy something that works out of the box. Here is what I did to get a wifi card that works seamlessly with linux. I didn't really want to use ndiswrapper (which wraps windows dlls). Ubuntu 5.10 wifi support is as good as you are going to get.

Here are the steps

1) got a list of well supported cards from Ubuntu 5.10 hardware support and other one listing chipsets
2) I went through the websites of my local retailers - I live in Canada so some of the more convenient ones are futureshop.ca, bestbuy.ca, tigerdirect.ca, canadacomputers.com, and the the smaller chains such as logic computers.
Went through the cards one by one (in increasing price order) to determine which would work well
3) I avoided the cards with multiple revisions - you don't really know which version you are getting (dlink, netgear, etc...).
4) If I didn't find the card on the list I seach google for "part number linux" or "card model linux".
5) Finally I found one that supports the Atheros AR5212 chipset which is fairly well supported out of the box and supports 802.11g for $35 CDN.

All I can say is I wish companies wrote - "supports linux" in their advertising - it would make life much easier. Until then I will have to use google to verify hardware before I buy it.