Wireless+laptop+linux

All the FAQs and HOWTOs on Google about wireless seem to be about 3 years old, so I'm here for advice.

My lapdog doesn't have a wireless card. I'm not too knowledgeable about laptop hardware; is it possible to open it up and put in a wireless NIC? Or would I be better off getting a PCMCIA card? Do different manufacturers require specific drivers (thereby limiting my chances of getting it to work with Linux) or is there a standard? Do I need line of sight to the router? Anything else I should know?

Get a PCMCIA card... but Google around first to see which cards are supported by your distro. There are many more brands of cards than there are chipset makers so you'll have to know who made the chipset to match up with the Linux drivers. It has been done; the guys at Melbourne Wireless had a listing but I haven't seen it in a while. As a last resort you could look in Sourceforge.

yes 2 is correct. get a card natively supported under linux and dont mess around with ndiswrapper and all that. line of site not necessary, but solid walls will limit signal range.

I'm looking at getting an Orinoco from Lucent, they seem to have reasonably mature drivers. I'm running Ubuntu so hopefully all will go well.

orinoco fOrwIN!!

My wife demanded I put Windows back on her laptop so she could use MSN voip. What, Skype not good enough for you bitch? So now I have a Windows host on my wireless network. I am so ha><0red.