Wireless NIC recommendation

[Joe Holden]

Lars Stokholm wrote:
> John Nielsen wrote:
>> On Monday 15 January 2007 13:44, John Nielsen wrote:
>>  
>>> On Monday 15 January 2007 12:54, Lars Stokholm wrote:
>>>    
>>>> Hi, I hope someone can help me with this, before I go mad (no pun
>>>> intended.) :)
>>>>
>>>> I was initially looking for a relatively cheap 54Mbps, 802.11g- and
>>>> WPA-capable network card, based on an Atheros chipset, but after
>>>> spending the whole of last night looking for one - to no avail - I gave
>>>> up.
>>>>
>>>> I'm almost about to conclude that Atheros is not the way to go. So 
>>>> now I
>>>> want to know, if anyone can recommend ANY card, being cheap and
>>>> supporting the features mentioned above. I don't mind using NDIS, as
>>>> long as it works flawlessly. Also it would be good, if the card was a
>>>> popular one, so community support is more available.
>>>>       
>>> For driver support in FreeBSD, Atheros is definitely the way to go. Have
>>> you looked through the listings here?
>>>
>>> http://customerproducts.atheros.com/customerproducts/default.asp
>>>
>>> Also, you failed to mention what your definition of "cheap" is, and what
>>> form factor you're looking for (PCI, Cardbus, etc.) I would start 
>>> with the
>>> listings at the link above and look through products from the
>>> cheaper-but-popular brands (D-Link, Belkin, Netgear, Linksys) to see if
>>> there are any you can currently buy within your price range.
> I can't really say what cheap is, just that it's in the low(er) end of 
> the scale. I only have a rough sense of the price levels in Denmark and 
> I certainly know nothing about them in the US. :)
> 
> The listing above it good, but I like this better, since it also warns 
> about different versions of the card:
> http://madwifi.org/wiki/Compatibility
> 
> This is the list I went through last night:
> http://linux-wless.passys.nl/query_chipset.php?chipset=Atheros
> 
> But one-by-one I threw them all away.
>>> The Netgear WG311T seems like a widely available decent bet for ~$50 
>>> USD.
>>>
>>>     
> In the data sheet it says: "Upgradable to Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) 
> security." I wonder what that means.
> 
> Also there are many versions of the card: WG311TIS, WG311TFS, WG311TGE, 
> WG311TNE and so on. After having already spend money on a card that 
> didn't work, because only rev. ? of the card used Atheros, I'm being 
> very cautious.
Sorry, completely the wrong link, what I meant was: 
http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/mediawiki/index.php/List,
has a fairly comprehensive list of cards and the chipset they use, 
should be useful in finding an atheros chip that fits your budget.

Ta,
Joe