Looking for a good wireless PCI card...

[Venesectrix]

Since my mobo (Abit NF7-S 2.0) came with integrated LAN but it wasn't wireless and my modem is in another room hooked up to another computer, I need a wireless PCI card to access it. I've got a Motorola surfboard cable modem and a Dell Truemobile 1184 Wireless Broadbnd Router. I'm looking for a good, relatively cheap (something under $40) wireless ethernet PCI card (I think that's what I need...ethernet is the one for a wireless home network, right?). This modem is already hooked up to 2 other computers, my parent's upstairs (they've got a wireless card or something like that) and this one (a laptop that I have the PC card for (not PCI card). So, what's a good wireless PCI ethernet card for around $40?

EDIT: I've been looking on newegg and they have wi-fi PCI cards, is wi-fi the same as ethernet? Also, almost all of the cards I've looked at say 802.11b, what is that? Is it good or bad?

EDIT2: forgot to mention, I'm dual booting WinXP and Redhat Linux, so please try to suggest linux-compatible cards ;)

[RyanRichard]

Venesectrix,
802.11b is one of the standards of wireless netowrking.
11b is the standard where the top transfer rate is 11Mbps (megabits), and 11g is upto 54Mbps.

"The TrueMobile 1184 Wireless Broadband Router is an 802.11b wireless access...and has approximately a 150 to 250 foot coverage" <-- right from Dell

What I use myself is a Linksys WMP11 Wireless PCI Card, at the time i purchased it, it was around 70'ish.... now your looking at it to be around $50.
DLink has one for cheaper, their Dlink DWL-520+ AirPlus Enhanced 2.4GHz Wireless PCI Adapter. That runs in your price range given.

As for the linux aspect, I use Mandrake 9.x and have had no problem with my wireless card.

...feel free to ask any more questions :D

hope this helps,
Ryan

[XWRed1]

Linksys makes good pci cards. They use the prism2 chipset, so they work fine in Linux and are very featureful.


BUT, you want to make sure you get a revision 2 card. They are selling a revision 3 card now (v3.0) that uses a Broadcom chipset instead of prism, and that isn't Linux-compatible at all.

[Venesectrix]

I've been looking at the Netgear MA311 Wireless PCI Ethernet Card, since most manufacturers don't list what revision the others are on their site. Do you think this would work (I've got some linux drivers for it)?