nice wife bought me a new shiney new hp laptop. has broadcom 4311 card in it. hate it. really hate it. native driver drops and it's cheaper to buy a new card than spend time dorking around with all the rest of the stuff. Took a darned shoehorn to get Vista off the laptop. second drive and XP is running wireless. Still hate it.
Intel, atheros? I'm looking for a chip OEM, I'll worry about finding a card with the chip on it. We all know that any card sold for end users is likely to have 2-4 revisions and chips in a lifecycle.... I've seen/searched/read loads of half answers, but just want reasonable wireless on par with what I got years ago with lousy XP. I figure why not ask the folks who know. (sorry, the more linux becomes "for the masses" the less reliable the answers google returns). I mention intel as they seem to support linux, and that's the only chip on an ethernet nic card I'll buy as the drivers are superb in linux, bsd, and windows.
I've been a gentoo user for years now, and now am enjoying the sabayon yummy taste

thanks in advance,
andy
p.s. 802.11 b/g is fine. a and n not needed. Already have three b/g access points to cover my house (lots of metal inside walls for HVAC etc). don't see replacing them with n capable hardware anytime soon.
And I'll happily report back results once new hardware arrives.