Linux compliant wireless cards

Posted by Vivek Gite [Last updated: April 22, 2006]

Q. I am looking to upgrade my home network with wireless networking. Is there a list of wireless card supported by Linux?

A. As you may be aware, it is a networking technology allowing the connection of computers without any wires and cables, mostly using radio technology.

These days Linux (aka kernel) supports various USB/PCI wireless cards for both Laptops and desktops systems. The best way to verify this is to contact card manufacturer / vendor. A quick search on manufactures web site will help you to get idea which card supported under Linux.

My personal experience is that cards from Intel (Centrino), Cisco, Netgear, DLink works with Linux.

There is a short list of wireless cards along with links to driver and vendor website. Make sure you visit an index of information and documentation of interest to those who now use or are considering using Linux on a notebook or laptop computer.

Linux is gaining popularity so most wireless card vendors started to include drivers on site. It may be possible that driver is not included in your running kernel, you need to get it from vendors web site. When you download driver it comes with installation instructions (look for READEM and INSTALL files).

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