This blather I'm typing is probably better suited to the magazine 2600, but because it pertains specifically to my quest for a PCLinuxOS-friendly USB WiFi adapter, I thought I might as well let off a little steam by typing it here.
So I walked into Best Buy to see what sort of fun I could have as I look for a PCLinuxOS-friendly USB WiFi adapter. Of course, I can't find the chip-set of any USB WiFi adapter listed on its packaging [it's too bad that computer manufacturers aren't required to print the chip-set information on their devices the way that food manufacturers are required to print the nutrition information on their food --- hint to the dictatorial bureaucrats in Washington D.C.: you're missing [1] a golden opportunity to encumber tech-manufacturers with bureaucratic red-tape by requiring this information on packaging and [2] the tax-and-fee revenues such shenanigans could generate]. One of the friendly sales associates in the computer sales area walks up to me and asks whether he can help me. So, I tell him that I'm looking for a Linux-friendly USB WiFi adapter. Naturally, his polite (I'm serious, he was extremely polite) response was that the OS-compatibility requirements are listed on the packaging, and they all probably require Windows. He was doubtful that any of them would work out-of-the-box with "Linux".
[I'm pleased at this point because [1] this sales associate is extremely polite, [2] he's informed enough to know that "Linux" is a computer operating system and that it isn't Microsoft Windows, [3] he seemed at least a little sympathetic to my plight, going so far as to hazard a guess that none of the devices on the shelf would work OOB with "Linux".]
Then I asked him if he knew whether any of the USB WiFi adapters used an Atheros chip-set and not a Broadcom chip-set. He pushes a button on the little device that all the computer sales associates at this particular Best Buy were wearing on the collars of their shirts and asks some guy named Tom to come to the networking aisle. Tom appears moments later and he asks Tom whether any of the WiFi adapters uses an Atheros chip-set. Tom dashes off to find out (supposedly), and the first associate who was trying to help me follows in Tom's direction casually. Within 60 seconds, the first associate returns to say that they don't have that information available. He also says that he's sorry about it.
Despite my stupidity in buying a Netgear 600 WNDA3100v2 USB WiFi adapter from my nearby Radio Shack without checking into its "Linux" compatibility, and despite my many failures to implement the [often complicated] instructions from various Internet sources that allegedly will get this WiFi adapter to work with PCLinuxOS, and despite the techno-regressive civilization that makes such problems as this possible, I left Best Buy feeling good about two sales associates.
