And update regarding wireless adaptor compatibility

[Peter Stern]

Hi,

I would like to submit an update regarding is document:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HardwareSupportComponentsWirelessNetworkCardsNetgear

I have the Netgear WN311B.  This is a 32 bit PCI card with two wires that
plug into the card so you can relocate the antenna for better reception...
in theory.  It uses the Broadcom 4321 chip.

I was using it on Ubuntu 9.10 and it was stable while using WPA security.
The speeds were not wireless N speeds... Wireless G speeds is all I'd
get and sometimes the speed would inexplicably drop to 1Mb/s... which was
solved by disconnecting and reconnecting.

Upgraded to 10.04 LTS.  It worked using the proprietary Broadcom STA
driver.  Would NEVER get wireless N speeds... would typically get
40-54MB/s   But every so often, my system would completely lock up.  Also
sometimes, the network speed would drop to 1MB/s... and I would fix that by
disconnecting and reconnecting the wireless.

I wasn't sure what was causing the lockups

I recently decided that I wanted to upgrade in the hopes that it will fix
my system lock up issue.

So I went to Ubunto 10.10.  System stability was worse... would crash the
system after 5-30 minutes of heavy wireless use.

Switched to a wired connection... my stability issues went away!

Upgraded to 11.04... no stability improvement with wireless... but now I
was getting real wireless N speeds... over 100mb/s

Upgraded to 11.10... No stability improvement with wireless... but still
getting wireless N speeds.

Upgraded to 12.04... No stability improvement with wireless... and back to
getting only wireless G speeds... but with much less stability than I had
with 9.10 or 10.04LTS

Followed the instructions for 11.04 to swap the Broadcom STA driver for the
B43 driver... doesn't work for Ubuntu 12.04LTS.

So I propose the following changes to the document I linked above for the
WN311B:

-For the chipset field, it should be listed as "Broadcom BCM43xx"
-For the driver, list the Broadcom STA proprietary or the B43 driver.
-For the 'supported' field, I would put a big fat NO for Ubunto 11.04,
11.10 and 12.04.  Yeah... the card technically works... until it freezes up
the system after a few minutes.  It causes too much unstability to be
useful.

I spent hours researching the issue and trying things yesterday to get this
POS WN311B to work properly.

I feel that it would be best for Ubuntu users to avoid the WN311B.

My plan is to buy a replacement card that just works out of the box with no
issues.

Thanks for your time.

Regards,
Peter Stern
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