That chipset is not compatible with free software. It won't work with
Trisquel. You may be able to replace the internal Mini PCIe wifi card.
However HP, Lenovo/IBM, Toshiba, and Dell have been implementing digital
restrictions that prevent the upgrade or replacement of cards. If you can't
or may not be able to replace this in your system a USB wifi card should
still work.
Atheros AR9170 (USB N chipset) and Realtek RTL8187B (USB G) or RTL8187L (USB
G) work with Trisquel.
Cards with these chipsets aren't generally being manufactured any more or
readily available. Large stocks which did exist several months ago are
completely depleted now.
There is one factory where we can still get cards with the 8187B chipset
manufactured cost effectively. They still have the fabrication equipment in
tact and operational. There is another factory which can supposedly
manufacture more of the USB cards with the AR9170 chipset for us. However we
had a conversation several months ago... with another company who also said
this. By the time we got to it they had dismantled the equipment and/or
wouldn't sell remaining stocks except to old customers.
We are also working to get support for a newer Atheros USB chipset. Atheros
has to release the code first though... that depends on Atheros legal.
Going back to the Mini PCIe / Mini PCIe Half Height Cards the ones which work
are those with chipsets from Atheros. Any N Atheros chipset in PCI/PCIe
format should in theory work. There is a problem with many of the desktop
PCI/PCIe cards though... even though the chipsets are supported (on some
systems). We haven't see any issues with the laptop Mini PCIe (or half
heights) though (where there isn't a digital restriction issue at least).
Also- if you purchase from us Trisquel gets 25% of the profits. It also helps
us work on getting support for more cards/products out. Like low profile
desktop wifi cards for instance (we still don't have low profile PCIe cards
although we do have the low profile PCI cards- amongst others).
http://libre.thinkpenguin.com/
