I think it mostly depended on the vendor, like today, where Broadcom and Realtek suck a lot, Mediatek and Qualcomm a little and Intel/Atheros work just fine. I remember using Ubuntu 6.10 or so with an Intel card out of the box.
I’m sure it is but the status I see shows that there isn’t much support for anything newer than 802.11n cards period, so if you’re using anything from the last 5 or 6 years, you may have a problem.
That’s a it different from the various Broadcom or whatever issues the Linux kernel was dealing with in the early Ubuntu eras (where Ubuntu also I think accepted some blobs/drivers that weren’t in the kernel at the time).
The problem here seems to be no support for certain stuff, regardless of chipset maker, rather than having to pick a certain one, unless you’re able to go really far back (which may have issues on some networks at this point).
As always, the best option for less-mainstream operating systems is to use Ethernet when possible.