I should probably add that I got the card so that I could run a "radio VCR" in a 2nd-floor bedroom. All the other computers are in the basement where there is no good radio reception, so the upstairs computer records radio programs and also sends a streaming signal to a basement computer.
Ubuntu has a four-bar "wireless signal strength" icon on the applet bar, and the cheap wireless PCI card mentioned here never goes below three bars as it transmits its signal about 30 feet to the wireless router, through two cheaply-constructed wooden floors.
--- On Sat, 8/30/08, Leo Mauler webgiant@yahoo.com wrote:
From: Leo Mauler webgiant@yahoo.com Subject: Re: Wanted: Cheap, Linux compatible wireless card To: kclug@kclug.org Date: Saturday, August 30, 2008, 4:57 PM --- On Thu, 8/28/08, Matthew Copple mcopple@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@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).