This Card provides an easy Internet setup for virtually any laptop or notebook to share your cable or DSL modem account. It simply slides into a PCMCIA slot to give your notebook access to all the files and resources available among your connected computers. With extras such as low power consumption, LEDs to indicate functioning, and a feature that keeps resources available to the network, even when in sleep mode, the Card provides an excellent networking solution.PRODUCT FEATURES: Adds your notebook computer to your network - easily; Lets your notebook access your cable or DSL modem account; Installs easily into your PCMCIA slot; Lets you stay connected as you travel, with easily portable, credit card size; Conserves battery with low power consumption; Sets up quickly with included Belkin software; Keeps resources available, even in sleep mode.
1 Works with Linux...simple fix
I'd been using one of these for two years on a laptop with Win2K, and was perfectly happy with it; over Christmas I installed Red Hat 9, which did not recognize it. Poking with google, I found that all I had to do was to add four lines to the file /etc/pcmcia/config.opts, namely an empty line followed by
card "Belkin-5020"
version "Belkin", "F5D5020-PCMCIA-Network-Card"
bind "pcnet_cs"
(The second and third lines should be indented by two spaces each.) It now seems as trouble-free on Linux as on Win2K.
2 Not very friendly to Linux
Although this card works very well with Windows products, getting it to work with Linux is not for the beginning or even intermediate user. It is a complicated and tricky process.
3 Great product from belkin.
Bought this for my laptop and it worked perfect. with no problems.
4 Very good, user friendly documentation
I bought this card to network my laptop, running Win 2000, with my old desktop, running Win 95.
Of course, with plug and play, installing the cards is just a matter of plugging them in and letting the installation wizard guide you through a few clicks, but as always with Networks, the two computers, running two different operating systems, have to be configured before they can talk to one another. And while the documentation of the PCI card was totally useless in that regard, I found the documentation of the Belkin F5D5020 very well designed, informative and most useful. A good read through it later, my two computers were sharing files and printers, and I was happy I'd bought the right product.
