# Puppy linux and wireless adapters



## diamondtim (Jun 10, 2005)

Has any of the puppy linux users used it to hook their computers to wireless adapters? 

Am thinking of getting one of those little USB adapters that look like a pen drive and plug into the port to hook up with my wireless router.

Any tips would be appreciated.


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## comfortablynumb (Nov 18, 2003)

when I use puppy it always find both my network card and the wireless card and will connect on either or.


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## diamondtim (Jun 10, 2005)

Thanks CN,

I take there are no needed drivers - just plug and play?


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## backwoodsman7 (Mar 22, 2007)

diamondtim said:


> I take there are no needed drivers - just plug and play?


I don't know anything about Puppy, but in general, Linux support for USB wireless adapters is a bit spotty. Before you buy the adapter, you'll want to find out which ones will work. PCMCIA wifi adapters are much more likely to work out of the box, so if it's a laptop, that might be a better route.


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## diamondtim (Jun 10, 2005)

Thanks backwoodsman7,

The machine is a desktop. Compaq PIII 700mHz, 384mb RAM. Was a Win NT that I am trying Puppy on.


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## backwoodsman7 (Mar 22, 2007)

diamondtim said:


> The machine is a desktop. Compaq PIII 700mHz, 384mb RAM. Was a Win NT that I am trying Puppy on.


Puppy is great for older machines that are too slow to run full size, full featured distros. And of course, there's nothing wrong with using it on a faster machine if you want. But you have plenty of horsepower there to run PCLinuxOS. If you're looking to get it going with no or minimal messing around making your hardware work, that's the way you want to go.

Here are a couple USB wifi adapters that work with PCLinuxOS, and have a pretty good chance of working with other Linuxes as well:
http://pclinuxoshwdb.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=101&Itemid=63
http://pclinuxoshwdb.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=235&Itemid=63


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## HermitJohn (May 10, 2002)

I suggest asking on the Puppy Linux forum. I know when I was looking for wifi card for my laptop, I just looked for cheapest cards then checked them back with a search on the Puppy forum to see other peoples experiences with particular chipsets in those cards and driver support. My $15 "Alice" card worked fine and much stronger than a slightly cheaper card. It was all automagical and I had no problem connecting my laptop to wifi hotspot at library.

Anything supported by one linux is likely supported in others. Same kernels, same modules, just differing scripts to make it all work and differing software included. Only difference between Puppy and big distributions is the bigger ones include more software on the cd. Puppy with some tinkering can run anything a bigger distribution with same kernel can run.


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## diamondtim (Jun 10, 2005)

backwoodsman7, 

I have PCLinuxOS 2007 also on a CD. Am playing with that one also. Had some initial problems with it not displaying on my monitor after it installed in RAM. :shrug:


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