Network card availability, only Intel cards?

Creators & Developers
1

From what I have been able to find straight away, the framework laptop only has Intel network interface cards.
I am hoping to be able to integrate a card that has monitor mode and packet injection capabilities. Intel cards in general do not support these features, and it would be very handy if other options were available for framework laptop.
Customizability is after all why I chose framework.

2

Are you talking about Wifi or Ethernet?
For the Wifi card an AMD variant is available, it’s also standard form factor and you can buy whatever you like on the open market.
The ethernet card has a realtek chip. You could also use any USB-Ethernet dongle you like, if you’re not set on the expansion card form factor.

3 Likes
3

I’ve had a Mediatek MT7921K (aka AMD RZ608) in my previous 11th Gen and current 13th Gen FW13. Not a speed demon of a card, uses a bit more power even when idle. However the Linux driver support is light years ahead of unIntel.

Not sure about the specific features you mentioned, don’t use them myself. Maybe ask on GitHub - morrownr/USB-WiFi: USB WiFi Adapter Information for Linux ? Nick knows more about drivers and cards than anyone else I’ve ever encountered…

4

Never had problems with intel cards on linux while I had some with mediatek, can you tell me what common issues with the intels are?

5

I preordered this one, don’t know if it helps you in any way

It won’t ship for months from now, but wish me luck with it!

7

The ones that affect me most are:

  • Location (un)Aware Registry overrides iw reg settings, locking out 6ghz and 5ghz DFS incorrectly

  • Intel drivers flatly refuse to make an access point on 6ghz, possibly 5ghz, I kind of brain dumped that part

  • Binary blobs that may or may not load correctly based on completely random uncontrollable variables, makes troubleshooting very difficult

But keep in mind this experience is more than a year old now. Drivers may have changed significantly since then.

8

Never had that, are there any aps with the wrong locale set around you? Apparently it pulls that from there. But yeah would definitely be annoying if it happened to me.

If you need ap mode intel definitely isn’t the way to go.

Also never had that happen, last time I though I had issues with loading the binaries and dfs is when I accidentally installed the wrong card XD (Took me ages to figure that out).