Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

[jhecht]

In my ongoing saga of trying to get an old Gateway laptop to connect to my wireless router...

Got some good info here on a Pup-friendly PCMCIA adapter. Bought one, only to find that what looked like a PCMCIA slot on this lappie is some $#@! later version plugin slot that's only half as deep, and has a different connector. It's exactly the same width as a PCMCIA card - which is what fooled me.

So I'm now looking for a USB to wireless adapter, that is known to give joy using Puppy 5.28. Can anyone help me out? Thanks!

[Aitch]

Can you post your PC spec as you seem to be suffering from label abuse

There are 2 types of slot for PC cards, - conventionally called PCMCIA type slots,

PCMCIA 16 bit, and 32 bit, though mainly 16 bit
CARDBUS 32 bit [these are generally mis-referred to as PCMCIA]

Cardbus cards will NOT fit a PCMCIA slot, but PCMCIA WILL fit Cardbus slots, as the 32 bit cards have different pinouts, with 1 pin blanked to prevent insertion as Cardbus cards are a different voltage, [3.3v instead of 5v for PCMCIA] and have dma/bus mastering capability

There are also type 1, type 11 and type 111, cards in PCMCIA which are different height, but the same width/length and 68 pin pinouts
Type 11 is most common

see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_Card

There are PCMCIA to usb adapters which will work with most 54m 802.11a/b/g usb devices like wifi dongles, but not n type, in my experience, and some are only USB 1.1

Also you may be able to get a PCMCIA, [NOT cardbus type], wireless card on ebay or cragslist - early 802.11b devices were often PCMCIA 16 bit types, but are a bit slower at 11mb/s as opposed to 54mb/s

example http://tinyurl.com/7wuhdfg

also look for senao or prism wireless cards

RE: USB wifi there are too many to list

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=47367&start=30


HTH

Aitch