cheap 802.11g card that has a real LINUX driver

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

Most 802.11g CardBus cards cannot be natively supported by LINUX
because their specs are not released without an NDA.  A really
annoying state of affairs.

The most pragmatic solution is to use Ndiswrapper.  This is a LINUX
kernel driver that actually interfaces a Windows driver with the LINUX
kernel.  A real tour de force.

The downside is:
- no source for the real driver
- some functionality is lost
- you don't punish manufacturers for failing to support LINUX

The only fairly common 802.11g card that seems to have a native driver
is the Netgear WG511.  Not manufactured any more -- replaced by the
WG511T that has no LINUX driver.  Also (rumour): beware of WG511 cards
saying "made in China".

Anyway, Factory Direct is selling refurbished WG511's for $34.99 and
offering a $15 mail-in rebate.  They call it $19.99, but neglect the
sales taxes that you don't get back plus the effort of doing a rebate.
Still, a good price for a somewhat scarce commodity that is useful for
LINUX folks.

http://www.factorydirect.ca/catalog/product_spec.php?pcode=NE0511

I bought one today.  It seems to work with Fedora Core 3.  One trick:
there is binary-only firmware that you have to scrounge from the net.
I know: "what's the difference between binary-only firmware and a
binary-only driver" -- not much.

Here's the home of the driver.  It is in 2.6 apparently.
	http://prism54.org/
>From there you can find a source for the firmware and instructions for
installing it.

If you intend to buy one, do phone before making the trip.  Factory
Direct often runs out of things that they advertise.  Often even
before the ad shows up.
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