I'm probably going to go with the Linux route when I add wireless to my house.

Bleargh. OpenBSD all the way.

As to your question about PCI vs. PCMCIA, I don't think I understand. If you got an access point, then it'll just be bridged to your wired network, unless you specifically want it set up some other way, right? That is, use your Unix box as a firewall/router with a single internal and a single external interface, then have the AP sitting on the internal LAN and the wired and wireless nodes are all on the same network.

Otherwise, you could have a totally separate network for wireless, but it's more work for little effort. That's what I have right now (as I'm just running, essentially, ad-hoc, with my router being one of the nodes) and I'm looking to go the AP route, once I bother to save some money to buy one.