Finally, there is an ADM8211 chipset originating from ADMtek, Inc. (http://www.admtek.com.tw/products/ADM8211.htm). This chipset is becoming common in combo 802.11a/b/g cards. At the same time, very little is released in terms of ADM8211 specifications. It appears that the driver for the ADM8211 takes responsibility for more 802.11 MAC functions than the older drivers for Lucent/Prism/Aironet cards; BSD-wise the driver will be more similar to awi than wi or an.
We have initiated a discussion in the open source community about the development of multifunctional Linux and BSD drivers for ADM8211, supporting RFMON mode and hopefully, access point functionality. There are clear signs of enthusiasm and we hope that in the near future such drivers will exist. In the meantime, ADMtek has released precompiled drivers for kernel 2.4.18-3 oriented toward Red Hat 7.3 distribution. The source code for these drivers was posted at http://www.seattlewireless.net/index.cgi/DlinkCardComments. We expect that the development of open source drivers and configuration utilities for both AR5001x and ADM8211 chipset cards will grow quickly and porting and development of major wireless security applications will follow. We also hope that AR5001x and ADM8211 cards with external antenna connectors will eventually come out and these connectors will be compatible with the existing pigtail types. For now, the best idea is to stick to Prism, Aironet, or Hermes chipset cards for 802.11b/g and AR5000 chipset cards for 802.11a security auditing. Backward compatibility of 802.11g helps everyone, penetration testers and crackers alike.