Loud ramblings of a Software Artisan

I managed to find a SMC2835W wifi 802.11g card for CDN69. Works well with Linux using the prism54 driver, that comes with the kernel. At least they did not change their chipset like Netgear did by manufacturing in China instead of Taiwan. This one use a Prism GT.

Update (01/09): I recently discovered that there are at least 2 versions of the card and that I got lucky to get v1. Be careful. The other one apparently do not work with Linux (unless you want to use ndiswrapper which is not a good idea).

Today I bought a Wifi 802.11g PCMCIA adapter for CDN80 + tx. It is a Netgear WG511 and I checked that is was supported by the prism54 driver.

Big mistake. It does not work. After downloading the firmware, it ends up with errors. The side label says WG511CN and Made in China, and under the card (after opening the box), it says v3. Yes, that does matter. I'm gonna have to find a Made in Taiwan also know as v2. The friends on #prism54 did confirm this.

For reference, the FCC ID is PY3WG511-F. You can lookup FCC ID, this is really informative.