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.