Determining the chipset before a buy

[arinlares]

i was wondering how one could go about determining a wireless card's chipset before buying it. i was told that for a specific linux program i need, the name of which I can't remember, is only compatible with certain chipsets. any help would be appreciated.

[waterhead]

There is no exact way of determining this. Manufacturers will use different chips for the same model cards. They then give it a different version number.

Here is a list of some cards, but this is by no means all of the wireless devices available.

Devices - Linux Wireless

If you could "test" them at a store, maybe booting with a Linux LiveCD and checking the card with the lspci and lsusb commands. That is the only way I can think of.

[arinlares]

isnt that generally frowned upon? anyway... i'm ordering online, so that's not an option. thanks a bunch! that site is a step.

[waterhead]

isnt that generally frowned upon?

I did say "if".