On Wednesday, May 21, 2003, at 05:19 PM, Steven M. Bellovin wrote:

> In message <55307.66.157.144.77.1053562328.squirrel@www.zybx.com>, 
> "Christian v
> on Kleist" writes:
>>
>>     I'm looking for a good wireless card to run in my notebook (so it
>> needs to be PCMCIA, obviously).  I found some previous discussion
>> about this on the i386 archive, but those messages are from quite
>> some time ago and some of the models mentioned aren't available at my
>> BestBuy anymore.
>>
>>     What are some common (i.e., available at BestBuy or the like) 
>> 802.11b
>> PCMCIA cards that would work well in NetBSD 1.6.1 or -current?
>
> From everything I've heard, the Cisco Aironet cards have the best
> transmit strength, and hence will work in weaker signal areas than
> others.  I have very limited experience using them -- I borrowed one at
> a conference under conditions that my Orinoco card couldn't handle well
> -- but it seemed to work.  My only complaint at the time was the 
> apparent lack of an equivalent to wiconfig; I'd now miss wistumbler as
> well, unless there's an an(4) equivalent.
>
> But I doubt you can find one at Best Buy.

Cisco Aironet cards are absolutely excellent but they cost a lot more 
than your average card. You definitely won't find them at Best Buy 
either.

Netgear cards seem to work pretty decently. I have a Netgear MA401 that 
seems to work pretty well. The MA401 is based on the fairly standard 
Intersil Prism 2.5 chipset that is nicely supported by NetBSD. Another 
card that I particularly like is the EnGenius/Senao 200 mW wireless 
card also based on the Prism 2.5 chipset. I have gotten several from 
NetGate <http://www.netgate.com/> and they work great. They are 200 mW 
instead of the usual 30 or so mW. The extra power gives you better 
range. Once again though, they will not be at Best Buy. Linksys cards 
probably work fine too. I would stay with PCMCIA cards versus CardBus 
cards. I am not sure if NetBSD has good support for CardBus but I do 
not think it does. Good luck finding a good card.

Bryan