Linux and wireless

Linux and wireless

But, as noted in the article, we probably aren't going to get the source we'd really want: the wireless drivers.

What wireless cards *are* supported? The HOWTO's and FAQ's on the matter are, franky, confusing. They list various chips and cards that are supported, but if you dig down a bit and read about the various cards, most of them say "well, up until a year ago they used this supported chipset, but now this card uses a different chipset even though it has the same model number, and that new chipset isn't supported". I am not really in the market for a new card (when I bought a couple, I got Lucent Orinocos since I knew they were well supported, even if more expensive), so I haven't figured out exactly what I would do. But I have this vague impression that wireless support on Linux is a bit of a mess, in that most of the recent chipsets in cards that are readily available are simply not supported. (Definitely not with open-source drivers.)

Is it this bad, or do I have a false impression?

I also really wish manufacturers would give their bloody products a new model number when they change something so fundamental about the product as what drivers will work with them. I realize that the attitude is "we're giving you a Windows driver disk, you don't need to know what's going on inside", but sheesh, if they're going to change the chipset, give it a new bloody model number. That way, if we find something that works, and we find one of those somethings in a store, we can be sure that that new version of the same something will still work. Without being able to rely on that, it's very difficult to buy hardware for Linux systems.

-Rob