Re: Wireless Chips

[Larry Finger <Larry Finger lwfinger net>]

Herbert Taylor wrote:
> I just finished reading the Network manager story in the Red Hat 
> Magazine.  It had a list of chips that work with Linux and a list that 
> don't.
> Are these chips the kind that are in the computer or are they PCMCIA type.
> I have a Dell Inspiron B130, that has a broadcom wireless card.  Haven't 
> found a way to use it on wireless.  Does anyone know of a PCMCIA card 
> that would work in its place?  I am using Fedora 8 which works very well 
> on DSL.  I will be doing some traveling this summer and would like to be 
> able to use the wireless such as in airports, etc.

These wireless chips come packaged in many forms. In modern laptops, 
they are on a mini-PCI express card. In slightly older laptops, they 
are on a mini-PCI card. They also are built into PCMCIA cards. For 
desktops, they are built on a PCI card. In most cases, they are part 
of something that plugs in, but there are probably motherboards that 
have them soldered on.

If you send the part of the output of a 'lspci -v' command that refers 
to the wireless card, I can tell you if your Broadcom card is 
supported. Unless your B130 is very recent, that device should work.

Larry