[Prism54-users] Damn and Blast

[David Legg]

Hi all,

Subject seemed appropriate. After several weeks of research for my new 
internal home wireless network I decided on SMC 2802W cards, which seemed to 
work pretty well and pretty reliably with Prism54 drivers. Unfortunately, 
like some others I unknowingly bought the recently produced 2802W V2, which 
seems to have a completely different chipset, so I don't hold out any hope 
for amendments to the driver. Thanks for telling us all SMC. Are people 
really this desperate to scupper Linux? They seem to bring out totally 
incompatible cards every other month. They haven't exactly got any cheaper.

The other alternative, that I can actually get hold of, is a D-Link DWL-G520 
which I understood for a fact was Atheros based. Imagine my surprise when I 
saw it on the supported cards page here. I am seriously confused here as I am 
seeing a lot of what I thought were Atheros-based cards on the supported 
cards page. The G-650 is Prism based I understand, but not the PCI G520. 
Confusingly there seems to be several versions of this D-Link card, the most 
recent being seemingly being based on a TI chipset, and others seem to be 
abandoning Prism chipsets.  What's the story here?

Cisco have, in the past, seemed to support Linux rather well, but they are 
expensive. I don't know what the story is with any 802.11g products.

So after several weeks of research I have drawn a blank regarding 802.11g on 
Linux, and unfortunately the hard work put in by many developers on drivers 
seems to have come to nought. Anyone have any idea about a 802.11g card (that 
actually has a current revision that works) that definitely works with Linux, 
either Atheros (madwifi) or Prism based? If it is a slightly more obscure 
card where can I actually get hold of one, preferably in the UK? It has to be 
a PCI card.

I'm sorry to bring up this 'what works with Linux' question, but after several 
weeks and months of research I keep coming back to it.

regards,

David