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recommendation wanted: which wireless network device, not usb?

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housetier:
For the "classroom" in my club I am looking for wireless network cards.

They should not be USB devices, as these tend to be borrowed but never returned. So they should go into, say, the PCI slot.

They must work with linux.

I need about a dozen of these. I already have a WLAN router thingie that supports this .n-draft, which people tell me is supposed to make things faster.

Which device can you recommend?

Carol Haynes:
I have used Edimax 802.11g cards before and found them very cheap but easy to set up and good signal strength (helped by an aerial on a cble rather than tcked behind the machine). See

http://www.edimax.com/en/produce_detail.php?pd_id=1&pl1_id=1&pl2_id=44


If you need 802.11n they also produce:

http://www.edimax.com/en/produce_detail.php?pd_id=225&pl1_id=1&pl2_id=44

which I haven't used but is pretty good value for an n card.

Amazon sell their stuff.

I don't know about Linux compatibility - I just know the few times I tried Linux it was almost impossible to get wireless working (with a whole bunch of Netgear, LinkSys and other PCI cards).

They say http://www.edimax.com/en/produce_detail.php?pd_id=259&pl1_id=1&pl2_id=44 is Linux compatible but only with kernels 2.4/2.6. That probably means that was all it was tested with.

PS If you can afford to go for WiFi-n then you will find it is much faster (up to nearly 6 times) for file transfers between machines and I suspect if you have a lot of people trying to access a broadband connection at the same time the increased bandwidth would speed that up too. The best thing about WiFi-n is the improved range and signal strength.

If they are all in the same 'classroom' it would be cheaper to buy a bunch of wires and have a wired network and then you don't have to worry about compatability with Linux too much. Not as neat but cheaper, a lot less hassle and if the machines/router have gigabit interfaces very fast.

housetier:
I do have cables atm and it's a pain in the ass: each computer is different, each table is different, none of the tables were meant to be used as desks...

It's a bunch of hand-me-downs with too many cables for my taste. Speed is not so much an issue as simple setup: with those wireless cards I only need to lay power cables accross the room.

I will look into that wifi-n as well. Thanks! :)

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