What wireless card will just work?

[gamezealot]

What wireless card will work with knoppix? Plug and play...

I'll buy whatever card it is, I'm using knoppix 4.0.2...

[Harry Kuhman]

We have a wireless networking section in the wiki. I've mentioned there one Belkin card that works for me. However, be careful; many times manufacturers change chipsets but keep the same card model number (Dlink for example has made many different DWL-650 cards, some are reported to work under Knoppix but mine that use different chip sets do not), so it's pretty hard to be 100% certain that a card will be well supported. My card is marked ver. 2101 with a paper sticker on the box if that helps, I would expect cards with the same ver number to use the same chips, but if the version number is different I wouldn't trust the card to work.

[Robert A.]

Last year, I first tried Knoppix 3.6 or 3.7 as an absolute newbie. I was sitting in a WiFi coffee house that I frequent, and downloaded Knoppix via WiFi. Then I burned the iso, booted the CD, and it worked the first time (Windows XP Home).

My Netgear MA401 WiFi card was still in the slot, so I tried to connect to the Internet. No problem. Worked the first time (to my surprise) with no user intervention.

A few days later, I was in a different WiFi coffee house. I booted directly to Knoppix CD, without first using Windows. No matter what I did, I could not get the wireless to connect. The card was recognized, but the transmitter was not. So I re-booted to Windows, connected to the WiFi, and worked awhile. Later, while still there, I re-booted to Knoppix - and this time, it immediately recognized the WiFi transmitter! I was able to connect to the Internet in Knoppix.

This leads me to believe that the particular card, and maybe some others, store channel information within the card itself. Apparently, Knoppix (at the time) was unable to connect to a previously-unconnected channel, but was able to connect to a previously-connected (by Windows) channel. It could not have obtained that information from the hard drive.

I should point out that the WiFi was not password-protected.

I don't know the technology for sure; I am merely guessing. I haven't tried to connect yet with 4.0.2 (not near WiFi these days).