I'd stay away from the linksys access points. We have been using them for 3 years at work, nothing but trouble. They have buggy firmware, (so bad that downloading newer firmware tends to fry the AP) very low power radios, extremely bad tech support, the list goes on and on...
However, Linksys wireless cards tend to work very well, and have good support under linux with the wlan-ng project. I'd use an AP from Symbol, 3Com or Cisco, (They are pricey but worth it) If you are on a budget, I'd look at the D-link. Robert Toole Systems Engineer USCO Logistics / Calgary -----Original Message----- From: Dave Lee [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, September 01, 2003 10:22 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: (clug-talk) Ask CLUG: Which Wireless Access Point? Richi Plana wrote: > I am thinking of starting a wireless network at home and am wondering if > I need to get an access point (or will Linux with a WiFi card connected > the the Internet work?). I don't think a wireless card has the hardware resources required to act as an AP. It'd be nice if there were PCI cards that had the ability to act as an AP. > I'm looking at two Wireless AP options and was wondering if you could > give me your opinion on which would work best for an all-Linux network. > The two APs I'm condering are the D-Link AirPlus Xtreme G Wireless > Router w/ 4-Port Switch (DI-624) and the Linksys Wireless-G Access Point > (WAP54G). Is there already linux driver support for some 802.11g cards? If so, thats pretty sweet. I haven't looked yet. I just bought the DI-614+ this weekend, which supports the non-standard 802.11b+ protocol, which uses a different encoding (don't know if encoding is the correct terminology) called Packet Binary Convolution Code (PBCC). This encoding ups the theoretical max bandwidth to 22Mbps, which in reality is reportedly closer to ~6Mbps. When I did the firmware and driver upgrades, I noticed that D-Link now offers a "proprietary" 4x mode. The FAQ states that "4X mode is a proprietary method of gaining increased throughput exclusive to the D-Link Airplus family. 4X mode enables you to get up to 4 times actual throughput increase over 802.11b devices when using D-Link Airplus products that also support 4X mode." of course, none of this 4x mode is linux friendly, and I don't know if the 2x PBCC stuff is linux friendly. In my case the only wireless client using the AP/router is my gf's windows laptop, and so linux support hasn't come into play. when it does, I assume standard 11Mbps 802.11b will be all that linux is capable of. Dave
