The Netgear WG511 is a Cardbus 802.11g adapter. It’s actually a very good one, except for one serious issue: They changed the specification without changing the model number. As far as I’m concerned, this is deliberate deception on the part of Netgear and I wrote them a letter telling them so. My response consisted of a single line:
“This product is not supported under Linux”
Whilst this is a reasonable statement in some respects, it doesn’t alter that fact that it worked very well under Linux and even has support built into the 2.6 kernel for the Prism chipset it originally used. For reasons known only to Netgear, they chose to change the chipset without actually doing anything to advertise the fact. I wonder how many other Linux users bought one of these cards and then spent frustrating hours trying to figure out why it didn’t work?
Bad practice Netgear, very bad indeed: You took my money by camouflaging a new product behind the reputation of another.
Keywords: netgear wg511 prism linux wireless