Buy a Linux Laptop

[KashmirGR]

The Dell TrueMobile 1150 was a rebadged Orinocco card that worked with the Hermes 802.11 drivers (from Prism2.5). Many of the newer Dell cards are using Broadcom chips as far as I can tell. These are harder to get working. There is a closed solution from a company called Linuxant, that costs $20. It creates a wrapper from the Window device driver. It's got a decent web interface (through localhost:18020) for management. I've noticed that about every 3-4 times I restart the machine, it fails to properly load, but I haven't seen any messages in /var/log. I usually just command line launch, and away you go.

 

Another solution is the ndiswrapper project. This is actually my preferred solution (because it's free). I've gotten it compile and installed but cannot establish a connection. It sees the router but never links up. I'm still debugging this, but it has to wait for the weekend.

 

All in all, I might suggest you go with a third party PCMCIA card, like an Orinocco. It's much less work because the are 'natively' supported in the wireless tools. I'm currently running a D500 with the Dell TrueMobile 1300 - which has one of the above mentioned broadcom chipsets.

[jleaman]

so my question is what is a good pcmcia card to buy that is support well with mandrake or suse. ?

 

Smd

usr

d-link

3com

[DragonMage]

I found this link from pclinuxonline.. but this should answer the linux compatibility for pcimcia wireless cards

 

http://www.prism54.org/supported_cards.php

 

Anyway, from all those manufacturers you mentioned, D-Link has the best record in term of linux compatibility. However, just to be safe, check the model number first.

[Drew]

best card hands down is the Orinoco Gold

[tyme]

best card hands down is the Orinoco Gold

it's my understanding that the orinoco's have a somewhat weak signal when compared to other wireless cards.