I have a desktop computer with no wired internet access; however, I do have access to a wireless connection. I am running Ubunt 13.10.

I do not have a builtin wireless on this desktop, so I am trying out various USB wireless receivers. None of them work. I have been to
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/WirelessCardsSupported

One thing I found, is that many of the wireless USB receivers (especially produced after 2008 -- and thus the ones I can find at stores) require ndiswrapper. However, I get the Fatal: Module Not Found error when trying to use ndiswrapper. The fix for this is to install all the packages needed for dkms, and install this way. However, this requires gcc, and a decent chain of dependencies -- some of which are unsatisfiable because of dependency issues in version numbers between the installed system and (I copied the .deb files to a thumb drive at a friend's place and tried to install them with dpkg).

I also found that, annoyingly, the naming of the wireless cards is a bit misleading. For example, on the compatibility report,
Netgear: WNDA3100 V1
is listed as working out of the box. However, in the store (Best-Buy), looking at the box, there is only the number WNDA3100 on the back of the box. It wasn't until I got home, and tried it until I realized (via lsusb) that it is WDNA3100 V2. And it doesn't work. In fact it is another one that works only with ndiswrapper, and even at that, doesn't work very well apparently.

So I have tried pretty much every card at Best-Buy now. None of them work. So my question is currently, what are my options? Has anyone had success recently purchasing a wireless USB receiver that works out of the box? If so please tell me what product, and where I can find it. Thank you.