D-Link DWL-G650 Wireless Cardbus Adapter, 802.11g, 108Mbps

Based on some of the reviews here, I bought this to replace a Linksys WPC54G card, which is not supported by Linux (Ubuntu 7.10) without some painful setup. It is revision B5.I had previously set up WPA on Ubuntu for my network.I booted Ubuntu on my laptop (an old Dell Inspiron 8100) with no card. After it was up, I inserted the G650. Ubuntu recognized it and connected to my Linksys WRT54G router with no problems. I rebooted the laptop with the card left in place, and it reconnected to the router with no problems.Note that D-Link absolutely does not support Linux with this card. They're happy to sell you the card, and they do provide a link to the MadWifi group from their Tech Support pages, but they won't touch it otherwise.The DWL-G650 gets 4 stars for two reasons:(1) After a connection to the network is completed, the two indicator lights on the card blink once a second. This is amazingly annoying when I am working on the laptop. The Windows documentation doesn't say anything about being able to turn the blinks off; I have an open support question to D-Link about this. (The Linksys card had one light that stayed solid except for slight blinking during message traffic.) I have a feeling I'm going to have to put some tape over the lights. [2008-02-09 - D-Link support says I'm stuck with the blinking lights. Time for some tape.](2) Compared to the Linksys, the DWL seems to be less sensitive to signal strength. Ubuntu showed 5 bars with the Linksys, and 4 with the DWL. Same PC, same OS, same position on my desk. I didn't test transfer speeds.

After failing to get another wireless card working on my Linux laptop, I came across this Atheros-chipset card on Amazon. It comes at a relatively low price, around $15 including shipping.However, there are some issues to be aware of when using this card on a Linux system. First, early DWL-G650's (hardware version Ax) have a completely different chipset and, as far as I could tell, are not known to work at all under Linux. My guess is that those are the 54-mbps models. (Can anyone verify this?) Mine, which works, is a 108-mbps, hardware version B5.Second, you need the MadWifi driver to use this card. Ath5k, the newer alternative, didn't work for me. In Debian 4.0 Etch, MadWifi is a pain in the neck to set up. The madwifi-source package from Debian doesn't even compile after the recent kernel update to 2.6.24. You have to download a more recent version of the driver from madwifi.org and compile it. In other words, if you don't have some experience with compiling kernel modules, don't even think about getting this card. (Set-up may be easier in other Linux distributions such as Ubuntu, and maybe it will be easier in Lenny; I don't know.)That said, I am quite pleased with the card's performance and reliability. I have never had trouble connecting. (But I am on a university campus with access points everywhere, so I don't know how it would work in a home or city setting.)

The great: Near the base it is very fast. Far from the base, it works farther than my old 802.11b did, and even at that range I get better speed than I got with my old gear close to the base. :)The unsure: I don't know for sure if its the base station or the card (I think base), but every once in a while, the connection will just drop. Windows will still show a link, but pings ect (to the base or anywhere) just fail).May or may not matter to you: No external antenna connector. There are ways to "install" one if you really need one, you can find at least two pages via google. Linux drivers - no distro comes with working drivers, and d-link doesn't provide a driver or support. You need to go here: [...] and compile the stuff. And it doesn't get you full functionality. - so if you are in linux most of the time, you should probably pick another card. Me, I'm in 2k most of the time with my notebook, so the linux support is workable. I'm happy.

I bought the DWL-G650 card (Version B4) along with the the 624 Router (Version C1) a few days ago. The installation was very easy. The install guide was the best I ever read.Only one problem, it didn't work. For some reason, I could not get a signal on my laptop with the DWL-G650 card. Several calls to D-Link did not solve the problem. Though the D-Link people are great and their e-mail service is also great, I still could not hook-up.D-Link told me to send the product back to Amazon since they believe it is either a bad router or a back card.I'll change the star rating once I get this product to work. But it deserves at least 2 stars for the great install guide and the helpful people at D-Link.UPDATE: After more converstaions with the D-Link tech suport people, they concluded that the problem was with the latest firmware update (2.48) to this wireless card. When I use the prior firmware update 2.46, I have no problems hooking up with my Di-624 wireless router. HOWEVER, firmware update 2.46 has a WPA bug. So if you are willing to use 2.46 w/out the WPA encryption, this is a great product. The speed is amazing.Otherwise, you may consider the Linksys w/speedboast.