I have been experimenting with Linux over the past six months.

On my Dell 2650 Laptop I found that SUSE 10.2 automatically installed my
Linksys PCMCIA wireless card.

(This did not happen with version 10.3).

On a Dell 1100, I have just installed Linux Mandrake Spring 2008, and it
automaticalled my Gigabyte GN-WBKG usb wireless dongle.

All I had to add were the SSID and password when setting the WPA.

Both laptops running perfectly.