Rant about DLink network cards

[Mucman]

I've been hunting for an 802.11b card that is OpenBSD compatible. I finally found one on Ebay (DWL-520). I happily put it in my machine a booted it up. Guess what! It's not recognized! I went to the DLink site and they mention that here are 4 versions of this card {A,B,C,D}, and {A,B} have different chipsets than {C,D}. Of course I got the one with the crappy Realtek chip and not the Prism2.5 chip that is required. There's no label on the DLink box, so if I went to a brick&mortar store, I still could have gone home with the wrong card. Even worse is that they have a commong card called the DWL-520+ which is also a different chipset. WTF is up with their product naming schemes?

At least I know someone who will buy this useless card from me.

 

[cmetz]

Mucman, welcome to the *IX world. D-Link does deserve to be shamed here, but is faaaaar from the only manufacturer with this problem. Netgear is another known for it.

Arguably, it's dishonest and maybe fraud. Hint: send review samples of the FOO-123 to the press, revision A based on good parts. Get rave reviews, get the power users behind you. A few months later, release the FOO-123 revision B, based on cost optimal parts.

But par for the course in the PC business.