[ale] recommendations for a easy to configure Linux compatible 802.11B pcmcia card

[Matthew Magee]

I am using a Netgear MA401 in my Thinkpad 380.   Worked out of the box with 
Slack 9.1.  Shows up in iwconfig as a Prism chipset.  I don't know if there 
has been any chipset changes since mine was built so YMMV.   It is a 16 bit 
card, which is why I got it.  The 380s don't do Cardbus.

The back says:
MA401 Rev. D
V 2.5
FCC ID: PY3MA401RD

Should be available for around $40

On Friday 16 January 2004 03:48 pm, Van L. Loggins wrote:
> I've heard that orinoco makes a decent card, but I am not sure which models
> are linux compatible.
>
> If you guys can help me out and suggest particular brands or model numbers
> to look for I would be most appreciative I bought a Twinmos 802.11B pcmcia
> card that has the realtek TRL8180 chipset in it.
>
> Unfortunately this card only has drivers for the stock kernels for redhat
> 7.3, redhat 8.0 and redhat 9.0 with no ability to compile a module that
> will work with anything other than these distibutions or kernel versions.
>
> I had originally had fedora core 1 installed on my IBM Thinkpad 390X laptop
> and decided to try this card out with SuSE 9.0 after i was unable to get
> the drivers to work correctly.
>
> Suse recognizes it as a realtek pcmcia ethernet controller, but it doesn't
> show up properly when I run dmesg. the wifimanager program also doesn't
> report any info from it either.
>
> After fighting with it for several hours, I am throwing in the towel. I
> REFUSE to have to resort to installing a soon to be unsupported version of
> redhat just to get this Redheaded stepchild to work.
>
> It works great on a Windoze XP laptop, no problems at all, no need for 3rd
> party drivers even. I sure as heck am not going to mess up my laptop by
> installing that drek on it.
>
> Thanks for any input you can give me on this subject.
>
>
> Van