I commented elsewhere that in the room with my router I have frequent wireless issues with my MacBook...but not with Linux.

Agreed, just get a laptop with any of Intel's wifi chips and you're almost guaranteed Linux won't have a problem with it.

For Intel cards default setup works, but is not optimal, i.e. it is slow. In particular transmit aggregation is turned off by default.

`sudo modprobe iwlwifi 11n_disable=8`

http://support.system76.com/articles/wireless/

Yep. Atheros chipsets also tend to be quite reliable. Broadcom used to be bit of a red flag, dunno if they've gotten better.

https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/users/drivers

Broadcom still sucks. 50% of the time i boot my mbp in Arch the wireless interface just straight doesnt load even though the drivers are loaded and it is recognized with lspci

Some Atheros are not only reliable but ubercool. They support a gazillion options, including promiscuous mode, power saving, higher power transmission, etc.

In fact, Alfa Atheros antennas are the preferred option of those doing pentesting. Besides, I have great experiences with some models connecting to super low SNR networks where Broadcom would never ever connect.

Even that little bit of having to research is enough to deter mainstream users, and so we're back to OS X or Windows. A Linux distribution or two has to get to the point where it's stable, doesn't have some sort of possible compatibility issue with hardware, and is strongly supported and encouraged for mainstream use by a large PC manufacturer.

We're still far away for mainstream users. I mean, people on HN still seem to skip the quick component check. A big shift takes time.

I agree, but I think that big shift doesn't happen without big support from somebody.

That's why I did my research, bought compatible hardware, and spend money on software and services which support Linux. Raise the stats, vote with money, write Linux software - what else can we do?

Nothing, you need one of the large manufacturers to slowly divorce itself from Windows and offer well-designed, well-suported linux machines.