Orinico/Netgear PCMCIA-PCI bridge?

[Jim Carter]

On Thu, 4 Apr 2002 michaeld at senet.com.au wrote:
> I'm looking to buy a Netgear PCMCIA-to-PCI bridge (MA401AU) to mate with
> a "silver" Orinoco 802.11b card.

> Anyone able to comment about the compatibility of using this combo under
> Linux?

I got a Netgear MA401 card and PCMCIA-PCI bridge. As far as I could tell,
orinoco_plx and friends worked fine with the bridge. However, the PCMCIA
card was deaf as a post, and I sent it back. A co-worker had good results
with a Linksys card, so I replaced with a Linksys WPC11 card and WDT11
adapter. It's been working fine for me.

Most likely, any vendor's adaptor will work with any vendor's PCMCIA card,
but I wasn't about to tempt fate and warranties.  Someone who really knows:
please enlighten us.

As I understand it, the fact that one card from vendor X worked, and one
card from vendor Y didn't, is not a strong predictor of whether the card
you buy from X or Y will also work or not.  Lots of people report
dead-on-arrival cards from lots of vendors.  Hiss, boo!  And now my
reliable card seems to have gone bad :-(

James F. Carter          Voice 310 825 2897    FAX 310 206 6673
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