I have a small building that I keep a computer at to do some programming. Sort of my office you could say. It's about 150 ft away from my hours. I've been looking through all the wireless ethernet pci cards (for desktops) and I can't seem to find out what would be better. I"m getting a Linksys WRT54G Wireless-G router, and I was wondering what would be the better card to get? I'm looking to get a good signal and I didn't want to buy a cheap card, and since this is the first wireless network for me, I didn't know if linksys was incompatible with any cards. I'm looking for something in the $20-$40 range. Can someone point me in the right direction?

One of the cards I was looking into:
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetai...iate=pricewatch

I just bought a MSI PC54G2 based on the rt2500 chip (supported by linux if thats important)
http://web-systems.co.uk/?page=Products&pid=2550

I would recomend this card.

One thing to look out for is security.

You may have heard about WEP encryption, this is now totally useless, anyone with access to a linux operating system, and a network card that supports packet injection under linux (which many do) can crack your wireless key in 3 minutes (and its very very very easy, basically need to type 3 commands into the console, and its all automated)

This card supports WPA, which is a much more secure system. (although still not bullet proof)

Try to find a card AND access point that supports WPA.

I had a quick look at the card link you posted. It has a larger range than the card i recomented, but is much slower and onlysupports WEP, not WPA.

I appreciate your response.

As far as security goes, it's not a big issue for me. I live in somewhat of a rural area, and my closest neighbor wouldn't know what a computer is, needless to say they don't have LINUX. I'm surprised if .05 % of the people that live here know what LINUX is. Now that security is out of the way, I'm sure that the most primitive encryption would suffice, but speed and distance is what i'm shooting for. Something that has a strong signal and decent speed.

My connection will be 1.2 mbps (so it's not going to need a lot of speed to get the most out of the net). I wish they offered cable where I live, but my local ISP/telephone company has a monopoly on DSL broadband. $60/mo for 1.2 mbps. Go figure, anyways, like I said, if I could squeeze 1 mbps into my office from about 150 feet away that would be fine. I'm just curious on how the signal handles going through walls.

The signal would have to pass through probably 3 or 4 walls.

As for the OS, I will more than likely be using XP for most of it, although for my home computer, which will be wired, will have Linux on it.

My wireless card performes much better than advertised, i assume companys are made to do this to keep the FCC from jumping on them.. (same reason a bakers dozen is 13 i believe)

your card is advertised as (indoors)
70M (230 ft.) @ 2 Mbps
91M (300 ft.) @ 1 Mbps

Double what you say you need.

If securety is not an issue, then the only advice i can really give, is to avoid USB wireless clients like the plague.

I think the card you posted will work fine.. maybe to be on the safe side, send the customer support your query about range.. If it then fails, there is no way they can reject a claim for a refund.

If your getting a Linksys wireless router, you cant go wrong with a Linksys wireless pci card with speedbooster. I suggest getting the router with speedbooster instead of the regular one too. That is what I use on my laptop and my laptop internet speed is faster than my home computer. haha

I ordered both the items that I listed on here. I didn't pay enough attention to see if one was speedbooster and one not. Wish I would've read your post earlier, but I was wondering, what does speedbooster do? My connection will be 1.2, so would that really help in my case? Wouldn't it just increase the maximum capabilities of th router? Instead of 50 some mb/s, it doulbes it right? So, that means file-sharing would benefit from speedbooster, or maybe a faster broadband connection, but I don't see how it would help in my case. Someone please tell me if I'm wrong here because I'm don't know much about networking. Especially wireless.