Almost half a year ago (in June 2003) I bought an Acer TravelMate 800, a so called "Centrino[tm]" notebook. At that time, Intel promised to support the centrino[tm] components (the Pentium-M CPU, the i855 chipset and the PRO/Wireless 2100 3B WLan adapter) under Linux. As there is still no support (2003-11-08) and Linux is my main operating system on this notebook, I have decided to replace the Intel Mini-PCI WLan adapter with something actually working and useful.
After some search in german online shops and on ebay I didn't find a single Mini-PCI wireless card with Linux support. In fact the only device available in Mini-PCI form factor is the Dell TrueMobile 1300 with a Broadcom chipset, which is only supported on MIPS/LE linux-2.4.5.
But my search also led me to several reports about PCI wireless cards, which actually contain a Mini-PCI adapter inside:
By following the described procedure you lose the warranty on your PCI wireless adapter, and you might lose the warranty on your notebook. As a side effect you also lose the right to use the "Centrino[tm]" Logo on your notebook - if you have had it before.
I provide this documentation AS IS, WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY - don't come to me whining when you broke your hardware. DO NOT CONTINUE IF YOU DON'T ACCEPT THIS!