Who makes an 802.11b wireless PCI adapter card for linux and what does
it take to get it installed/configured?

802.11b wireless support is quite mature in Linux, and there is a
great deal of information and advice online.

Some specifics will vary depending on the distribution you choose to
use, but here are some relevant links to both hardware, and
installation documentation:

Linux Voodoo offers the Actiontec PCI adaptor.
http://www.linuxvoodoo.com/store/product_info.php/products_id/179/lvsid/b215881876a2e967b0db989fa828e968

Australia's Everything Linux sells a Dlink adaptor.
http://www.everythinglinux.com.au/item/DLI40205?elinux=f8d529f8c8db96e0eb147adbd47393f1

These are just two adaptor sold by dealers specialising in Linux,
however there are a wide range available, most based on uniform
chipsets. You should have success with any card built on a Prism
chipset, and many built on a variety of others.

Here is a list of many 802.11 PCI Adaptors:
http://products.80211-planet.com/802.11_products/pci_adapter/recent1.html
I personally know the Cisco Aironet and D-Link cards to work.

There are a number of resources to turn to that deal with 802.11
wireless networks in Linux, and here are just a few:

Wireless 802.11b on Linux, Part 1 
http://talk.trekweb.com/~jasonb/articles/linux_wireless1.shtml

Linux Journal's Review of "802.11 Wireless Networks: The Definitive
Guide" from O'Reilly
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=6089

Wireless LAN resources for Linux
http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/Linux/


There is a lot of information available, and readily available. I
found most of the information I have included above from simple
searches on Google's specialist Linux search
(://www.google.com/linux) and there is a great deal I haven't
included.

I hope these resources help!

Regards,
sycophant-ga

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Request for Answer Clarification by captaindave-ga on 24 Jan 2003 15:40 PST

At first I thought you gave me the answer, however I am still unable
to find any specific drivers.  Please give me a link to any driver
that will support Linux.  I don't care what brand the PCI adapter is,
I'll buy it.  The driver is what I need.

-David

---

Clarification of Answer by sycophant-ga on 24 Jan 2003 15:56 PST

Yes, I did sort of fail to mention the driver situation, sorry about
that :)

Most of the drivers required for 802.11 wireless networking are
already part of the standard Linux kernel. Assuming you have the
source for your kernel, you should simply be able to update the
configuration with 'make menuconfig' within the /usr/src/linux
directory.

I would suggest the easiest way to proceed would then be to build
support for all the 802.11 chipsets as loadable modules, then you can
dynamically load the required drivers as needed when you install a
wireless adaptor, or change them if you change hardware.

In some cases, however, the drivers for certain network cards may only
be available as a binary kernel module, which maybe a little more
difficult to work with, as it can depend on a specific kernel
configuration.

This section of the Howto that I linked to in my answer details what
drivers are required for various cards, and where to get them or what
version of the Linux kernel they can be found in:
http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/Linux/Linux.Wireless.drivers.html

If you are not comfortable toying with your setup at a kernel level,
then I could suggest your local Linux User Group as a place to get
friendly and informed support. Here are some resources to locate LUGs:
http://lugww.counter.li.org/
http://www.ssc.com:8080/glue/groups/

I hope this clears things up for you.

Regards,
sycophant-ga

When i searched for linux cards, the best support was for lucent (now
orinoco).  That was about a year ago though.