What wireless PC card is working for you?

[yosepht]

I want to convert my laptop to Linux only machine. My Wireless card is Netgear WG511 and
from the little research I have done it is not going to work under Linux. What is an easy to get
working Wireless card? I have a Dell Inspiron 8500 and I plan to install Ubuntu 9.10. Thanks.

[jayd512]

Do you happen to have a LiveCD that you could boot from and post the output of

lspci -vnn

I'm pretty sure you can get it going, but it'll just take a little work, but this page should help you get started.

[rokytnji]

There are so many different chipsets that Netgear uses on the WG511
that nobody can tell you what will work till you boot up a live cd and open a terminal and post the output of

lspci -knn

If it is a internal wireless or PCMCIA card.

Some cards work natively with Linux. Some need ndiswrapper at times. Nobody can tell till you post what wireless chipset is being used in your card.
Happy Trails, Rok

Jay types faster than my big 2 fingers.

[yosepht]

I have a PCMCIA card and when I did lspci -vnn it did not report anything about any
wireless device but it did report my broadcam ethernet adapter. I am not sure what ndiswrapper is but I will research and try it.

[reed9]

I have a PCMCIA card and when I did lspci -vnn it did not report anything about any
wireless device but it did report my broadcam ethernet adapter. I am not sure what ndiswrapper is but I will research and try it.

If lspci really didn't see your card, then that is a much more serious problem and ndiswrapper isn't going to help. But please post the output of the command so we can double check.

[yosepht]

I must have made a mistake but it is reported last. Here is the lspci -vnn result

02:01.0 CardBus bridge [0607]: Texas Instruments PCI4510 PC card Cardbus Controller [104c:ac44] (rev 02)
Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:013e]
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 168, IRQ 11
Memory at f6000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
Bus: primary=02, secondary=03, subordinate=06, sec-latency=176
Memory window 0: 20000000-23fff000 (prefetchable)
Memory window 1: 28000000-2bfff000
I/O window 0: 0000d000-0000d0ff
I/O window 1: 0000d400-0000d4ff
Secondary status: SERR
16-bit legacy interface ports at 0001
Kernel driver in use: yenta_cardbus
Kernel modules: yenta_socket

02:01.1 FireWire (IEEE 1394) [0c00]: Texas Instruments PCI4510 IEEE-1394 Controller [104c:8029] (prog-if 10)
Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:013e]
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 11
Memory at faffd800 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=2K]
Memory at faff8000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: ohci1394
Kernel modules: firewire-ohci, ohci1394

03:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88w8335 [Libertas] 802.11b/g Wireless [11ab:1faa] (rev 03)
Subsystem: Netgear Device [1385:4e00]
Flags: 66MHz, medium devsel, IRQ 11
Memory at 28000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [disabled] [size=64K]
Memory at 28010000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [disabled] [size=64K]
Capabilities: <access denied>

[reed9]

I'm pretty sure that's not the whole output. Some likely scrolled off the screen. But no matter, the last listing is your wireless card.

03:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88w8335 [Libertas] 802.11b/g Wireless [11ab:1faa] (rev 03)
Subsystem: Netgear Device [1385:4e00]
Flags: 66MHz, medium devsel, IRQ 11
Memory at 28000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [disabled] [size=64K]
Memory at 28010000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [disabled] [size=64K]
Capabilities: <access denied>

This is one of the more difficult cards out there, unfortunately. You will have to use a windows xp or older driver with ndiswrapper.

Linux Install and Configure Netgear WG311 Marvell 88w8335 Rev 03 Chipset Wireless Card

[reed9]

Oh, reading that guide, don't worry about anything after Step #3. It shouldn't be necessary. Once you have the driver installed with ndiswrapper and the module loading, you should be able to connect with Ubuntu's network manager as normal.

[yosepht]

Thanks for the fast reply I will give that a try. Will let you how it goes. I am sure I will
have a question or two before I am done.

[yosepht]

I finally got around to trying this and here is the result.
- when I do 'modeprobe ndiswrapper' the wireless card is accessed and the LED starts to flash but it does't seem to stablish a link.
- the out put of couple commands if it helps

yosepht@yosepht-laptop:~$ iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

wlan0 IEEE 802.11g ESSID:off/any
Mode:Managed Channel:0 Access Point: Not-Associated
Bit Rate:1 Mb/s Sensitivity=-200 dBm
RTS thr=2346 B Fragment thr=2346 B
Power Management:off
Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

yosepht@yosepht-laptop:~$ iwgetid --ap wlan0
wlan0 Access Point/Cell: 00:00:00:00:00:00

yosepht@yosepht-laptop:~$ dmesg | grep wlan0
[ 3697.058101] wlan0: ethernet device 00:18:4d:ee:c4:5b using NDIS driver: wg311v3, version: 0x3000036, NDIS version: 0x501, vendor: 'NDIS Network Adapter', 11AB:1FAA.5.conf
[ 3697.058138] wlan0: encryption modes supported: WEP; TKIP with WPA, WPA2, WPA2PSK; AES/CCMP with WPA, WPA2, WPA2PSK
[ 3699.138039] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready
yosepht@yosepht-laptop:~$
thanks