I was thinking of getting a wifi card like that, but can’t seem to find any.
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Atheros ath9k (and previously ath5k) has been 100% FOSS for many years.
Yes, but does that still count as “modern”?
ath9k supports N, so I’d consider it modern at least, since I think the vast majority of the population still use it.
I got an Atheros card, which is fine for WiFi on Debian 12 and was cheap to buy. Drivers were in the Debian foss repo. Bluetooth is not working on it though. Interestingly, the Bluetooth did work under PureOS but I never figured out why.
For something relatively fast, I suggest you stick to Intel chipsets, and avoid realtek like the plague. As others mentioned, you can go with Atheros, but your speed will certainly suffer, as well as probably breaking the ability to put the computer to sleep with S3.
I understand you would rather go with 100% FOSS, but this carries trade-offs.
Use libre boot website’s info for reference. The Athero cars were the only open source option. They are from the aughties. That is your only option. It is the same for hardware - libre boot stuff with a Core Duo era processor, nothing newer is trusted hardware.
You could always get an Ethernet-connected AP. This will allow you to use the latest WiFi but not compromise your OS.
What os is the ap running?
That’s the beautiful thing - it doesn’t matter.
some people would prefer to only use FOSS software and hardware, though