HOWTO: Set Up Wireless Networking, Part 1

Wireless support on Linux has come a long way, but it can still be somewhat difficult to set up properly. This is mainly the result of manufacturer stupidity. There are a small number of widely-used wireless chipsets, which are then used by third-party manufacturers to create the wide variety of wireless products that you see on the shelves of your local computer store. The first problem that Linux users face is that third-party manufacturers like Linksys or Netgear never tell you what chipset they used on the product’s packaging. To make this problem even worse, manufacturers have a tendency to create several “revisions” of a product, each of which uses a different chipset but the same model number, with no way to tell what revision is actually inside the box you’re looking at. I had this problem myself when I bought my first wireless card; I spent days researching products online, settling on a Netgear product which used the well-supported Atheros chipset. I bought the product at a store, took it home, and opened the box to discover a “Revision 2” card – sporting a poorly-supported Texas Instruments ACX111 chipset instead. Rule 1 of wireless setup, therefore, is to always make sure that the store you buy your card from has a good return policy.