wireless fun

I connected my laptop to my wireless router the other month, but until today had not got round to configuring my daughter's laptop computer for wireless connection. Configuring my SimplyMEPIS linux machine to take an Intel card was so easy, I thought that there would be no bother connecting my daughter's machine. How wrong I was! Even though the wireless LAN card was supplied with, and had the same maker name as the laptop, I could not get it to work under Windows XP - all I had was the message that the driver failed to load. Searching for a solution (using the ethernet cable connection), I discovered that others had encountered the same difficulty. The card, like the computer, is a rebadged OEM device and identified in Windows as a Prism card. I discovered that the card was recognised in the Linux system that I run on my laptop. So I came to the obvious solution - I swapped cards! MY laptop now has the Intersil Prism running under SimplyMEPIS, and my daughter's machine is using the Intel card.
Just goes to show that 'extras' supplied with a machine are not always guaranteed to work with it!