We move computers around quite a bit in our house, and we sure have the gamut here. I have been using a Ubuntu Linux workstation in my office for about 5 years now. Downstairs in the living room we’ve had Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows Vista, some NetTop PC’s, a Macbook, an iPad or two floating around, and a dual boot laptop. For some reason, we always seen to have problems with our wireless adapters for wifi in the house – we that is, we seem to go through a lot of them. Probably because they’re usually USB and often go between PC’s.
So I put together a new PC today with Ubuntu – and having gone through the whole drawer of wifi adapters, I found a broken Wireless G and 2 broken Wireless N, and one broken laptop wifi card. If I want to get this box online without an ethernet cable I have to use an adapter. Most of the bookmarks I had on file for supported Ubuntu hardware were outdated. One thing I should say is that if you use Ubuntu Linux – always make the official Ubuntu Forums your first stop for tech support. One trip there, and in about 30 seconds I found that there’s an Official Supported Wireless Network section of Ubuntu Help.
There’s a complete list of supported wireless cards for Ubuntu there (both new and old). I’m not a networking expert by any means, but I do know that for best use you don’t want to get a wifi adapter that uses ndiswrapper if you can help it (because it actually uses a Windows wrapper). What you want is a wireless adapter that has native support IN UBUNTU for the wireless chipset.
So, having perused the list myself, here is my recommendation. You’d be surprised how cheap you can get some of this stuff on eBay used, secondhand, and refurb.
My #1 choice for best wireless N adapter for Ubuntu Linux is the D-Link DWA-160 Dual Band “extreme N” wifi adapter. It’s USB, with native chipset support, and should work out of the box! Guess what – if you search hard enough you should be able to get one for around $30 used!
[EASYBAY]DWA-160[/EASYBAY]
The new price for the DWA-160 used is about $47:
Are there other supported cards? Yes, plenty – but I wanted one that had been listed as working in 2011 with native chipset support (for a reasonable price), and this was the best one. Also, for my needs on this project I wanted a wifi N USB adapter for Linux because if I dump this box I don’t want to open it to get the PCI card out, and I want an adapter that will work on a desktop, laptop, whatever we have. I’m glad we found this – it works well for us on this system.
