# Network Connectivity Hardware

Almost any network interface card (NIC) supported by the &arch-kernel; kernel should also be supported by the installation system; drivers should normally be loaded automatically. This includes most PCI/PCI-Express cards as well as PCMCIA/Express Cards on laptops. Many older ISA cards are supported as well.

The list of supported network devices is:

- Channel to Channel (CTC) and ESCON connection (real or emulated)

- OSA-2 Token Ring/Ethernet and OSA-Express Fast Ethernet (non-QDIO)

- OSA-Express in QDIO mode, HiperSockets and Guest-LANs

On &arch-title;, most built-in Ethernet devices are supported and modules for additional PCI and USB devices are provided.

ISDN is supported, but not during the installation.

## Wireless Network Cards

Wireless networking is in general supported as well and a growing number of wireless adapters are supported by the official &arch-kernel; kernel, although many of them do require firmware to be loaded.

If firmware is needed, the installer will prompt you to load firmware. See loading-firmware for detailed information on how to load firmware during the installation.

Wireless NICs that are not supported by the official &arch-kernel; kernel can generally be made to work under &debian-gnu;, but are not supported during the installation.

If there is a problem with wireless and there is no other NIC you can use during the installation, it is still possible to install &debian-gnu; using a DVD image. Select the option to not configure a network and install using only the packages available from the DVD. You can then install the driver and firmware you need after the installation is completed (after the reboot) and configure your network manually.

In some cases the driver you need may not be available as a &debian; package. You will then have to look if there is source code available in the internet and compile the driver yourself. How to do this is outside the scope of this manual. If no Linux driver is available, your last resort is to use the `ndiswrapper` package, which allows you to use a Windows driver.