In our last episode, I confessed to some trepidation as to installing

wireless hardware onto my Compaq Armada M300 laptop running Ubuntu


Linux 5.10. Nobody seemed especially worried on my behalf (at least,

nobody commented much on the subject), so I proceeded with Basic Geek

Research Action #1 – Query Google.

The top Google result recommended a Compaq WL100 11 Mb/s

Wireless LAN PC Card for my machine. However, apotheon had warned me that if I intended to use ndiswrapper (as recommended by jmgarvin) to run wireless on my Linux laptop, my hardware better be noted on this list of compatible items. Naturally, the Compaq WL100 11 Mb/s

Wireless LAN PC Card was not on the list. Worse, according to Froogle, I could expect to pay anywhere from $60 to $160 for the card.

Now, I don’t actually own this laptop, its company property, so any

hardware add-ons will be out of my own pocket. I’m not about to drop an

average of $110 on somebody else’s machine, especially when I don’t

have any hardware that the PC card would be useful with at a later

date. I’d be more comfortable pruchasing a USB wireless adapter,

because I can tack that onto any device I might use in the future.

Plus, I’m curious about (read: crazy enough) to play with USB support in Ubuntu.

So, once again, I’m turning to Tech Q&A: Which USB wireless adapter will work with my Ubuntu-powered Compaq laptop?

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Keep up with the Trivia Geek’s ongoing Wacky Linux Adventures with the wackylinux tag. If it doesn’t say wackylinux, it’s not really a wacky Linux adventure.