My post is quite lengthy, but I wanted to show that this wasn't just another one of those "What do you recommend" questions.
I'm currently building a media server for my ageing parents. I want everything to be as simple as possible, as well as wrinkle-free.
Everything is set up quite nicely. I have Plex Media Server installed on the Ubuntu machine. That streams to a Roku that's connected to their TV.
The only problem is network connectivity. I had an old Wifi dongle lying around (Ralink RT5370, for those of you who remember), but it's so unbearably slow that streaming an HD movie to the TV is pretty much out of the question.
I'm looking for a 300mbps Wifi USB dongle, or PCI card. Either would work. All I want is for the chipset to be supported out-of-the-box on Ubuntu. I won't always be around, so whenever a system update gets installed, I don't want to have to recompile some obscure drivers for the server's Wifi to work.
Ndiswrapper is also out of the question, as I have tested it and have found it to be quite unstable, especially when streaming large files over large periods of time.
I need something that has mainstream, integrated kernel support. I looked on the usual pages in the Ubuntu docs, as well as various forum posts and a number of web sites, but after roughly four hours of research (kill me now), the only thing I'm sure of is that Linux has always had trouble with supporting Wifi cards, and while less bad today, the problem is still somewhat present.
Can anybody recommend a stable, no-hack-necessary Wifi card or dongle that will work out-of-the-box with Ubuntu 13.10?
Thank you very much for your time!
