ok so apple just told me they cant change my order withouth canceling it and creating a new one (and pushing my shipping date by a lot) and i want my mac asap so this is out of the question

now i already have a usb wireless adapter thats gathering dust in my closet, i was wondering if i could use that or not (it's a Linksys WUSB11)

Linksys doesn't provide any drivers but i found some websites where people managed to get different wireless cards working (but i can't find a page with instructions or drivers). So does anyone know if this is going to work?

Airport Extreme is a CIP. You can order it seperatly and install it after the fact without voiding your warrenty or anything.

even in a Mac Mini?? (because u do have to open the case)

yes you can open it yourself and install the AE card. as long as you don't break anything you'll be fine.

You can do a lot inside the Mac mini without voiding the warranty.

I have a D-link USB adapter that I use with my iBook (hey, it was a LOT cheaper than an Airport card). It's entirely possible that they might use the same chipset, so you could try the driver for it. You can download it from D-Link DWL-122 Driver Download page.

edit: after a little reading, it does appear that they both use the PRISM2 chipset, so you might be in luck! If it does end up working, be sure to let me know, because this seems to be a popular question on some other message boards. I don't see any reports of anyone trying this particular combination of hardware and driver, so maybe no one has thought of this before (unlikely, but maybe).

I found out two other things:

1. Only the 2.5 version of the WUSB11 uses the Prism2 chipset, other versions use an Atmel chipset

2. The driver I posted the link to appears to be a generic Prism2/Prism3 driver for USB devices (from what I can tell looking at the driver files).

Good luck!

thank you for finding the driver !! I will try them as soon as i get my mac (its going to ship on or before feb 15th). I will let you know as soon as i try it (i have the 2.5 version so it should work)

Yeah, everywhere you look you see people asking about getting that adapter working for the Mac. I can't believe that I'm the first person to realize that the one from the D-link adapter might work. If it does, then a bunch of people are probably going to be very happy.

just tried the driver and its not working, it wont detect the device

Oh well, it was worth a try. Linksys stuff is a pain sometimes. One of those DWL-122's can be found on eBay usually for around $30 (US) or so though, and they work good. Only 802.11b though.

meh its ok, i just got an ethernet cable for it (since its pretty close to my router anyways)

but thanx for the help anyways