Non-USB WiFi options

The general way is to use a powered USB hub so you can get more USB ports with sufficient power, and then plug your USB Wi-Fi dongle into the hub.

well yes but im trying to avoid using a dongle but want the wifi internal of the case ill be building

It's possible to use a SPI or UART (serial) WiFi module which you might find used in a microcontroller project.  However, you would then loose the native networking capabilities of Linux.  If compactness is your goal, then you might want to look at a small USB WiFi adapter like the Asus USB-N10 (40T547440T5474).

would you be able to go into more detail mr fustini of how linux would lose its native networking capabilities. i only know how to use linux i dont know too deep anymore on advanced stuff on linux.

Sure, so with microcontroller boards like the Arduino I've used a couple different WiFi modules similar to:

http://www.microchip.com/wwwproducts/Devices.aspx?dDocName=en548015

https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10822

https://www.sparkfun.com/products/11049

The external microcontroller communicates with the WiFi module via a simple serial protocol (either standard serial, e.g. UART, or SPI).  These modules could be connected to the Raspberry Pi via it's GPIO pins (UART or SPI depending on the module).  But the module won't appear as a network interface like the Ethernet port or a USB WiFi "dongle" would. 

Instead, a program would have to be written to run on the Pi and communicate with the WiFi module to tell it do things like connect to remote server, send requests and receive responses.  If you just want to grab specific data from a simple web page or RSS feed, then this is doable.  But you won't be able to use a simple serial WiFi module to browse the web or run a server like Apache.

Cheers,

Drew

You are aware that this could get messy software wise if you don't know what your doing?

Here's a couple of alternative suggestions:

plug one of these into the ethernet port on the Pi  http://www.netgear.com/landing/wnce2001.aspx if you want it inside the box then you'll just need a bigger box!

However it would free up a usb port and as it's effectively transparent there's nothing to be done on the Pi which just thinks it has a normal wired ethernet connection.

RN171XVS-I/RM - MODULE, WIFI, 802.15.4 DROP-IN W/ANTRN171XVS-I/RM - MODULE, WIFI, 802.15.4 DROP-IN W/ANT or similar embedded module, downside is that they tend to be slow as you're talking to them via a serial port and there's no linux driver, so you have to do it all yourself.

Software wise, and depending on what's at the other side, it could be possible to run a ppp session over the serial port to a remote endpoint and treat it much like an old dial-up modem - that would give you a way to use it within the normal linux networking stack.  But there's a lot of details you'd need to work out in order to get that working.

yesb i do understand this. but i have always learned by testing things so i just figured id ask around and see what my options were.

ty for the info. ill see what i can figure out