Most of the time wireless will just work out of the box. In these cases you'll be able to configure your wireless card using the KNetworkManager applet which you should find running in your system tray.


If your wireless card isn't supported out of the box, chances are you can make it work fairly easily.

The first step is running this command to find out which chipset is on the card. The chipset is what matters, the make and model of the device is basically of no importance.

Now that you know which chipset is on your card, you can start figuring out what is required to make the chipset work in openSUSE - usually you'll just need to install a driver and/or some firmware.

Broadcom
Unfortunately Broadcom are highly uncooperative with the Linux-kernel developers in terms of wireless drivers. Nevertheless it's possible to get most of their chips working pretty easily.

If you have a Broadcom chip supported by the b43 driver, (e.g. bcm4303, 4306, 4309, 4311, 4312, 4318), you only need to install the firmware, this is automated by simply running this command and rebooting afterwards (you must be online while doing it):
If you have newer broadcom chips (e.g. bcm4321- or bcm4322-based), you can install the packages 'broadcom-wl' and 'broadcom-wl-kmp-[kernel-flavour]' available in the Packman Repository, this is a non-free driver provided by Broadcom.

To find out which kernel flavour you have (desktop, default, xen, pae), run:
Atheros
Atheros are working with the Linux-kernel developers towards providing support for all their wireless chipsets in the mainline Linux-kernel, via the ath5k and ath9k drivers, so most atheros cards should just work.

Intel
Intel are cooperating quite well with the Linux-kernel developers and all Intel wireless chips should just work.

Other Chips
If your chipset manufacturer is not mentioned above, search the web for 'opensuse [insert your chipset here]' and you're likely to find information on how to get it working.