*That would be an interesting project, I'll admit. Probably be more expensive than a regular AP though. I admit I haven't looked at prices of USB WiFi dongles lately, but last I looked (a few years ago) the dongle was around $90-100 or so. Add that to around $100-120 for the other components (Pi board, SD card, powered USB hub, 4-port gigabit hub) and you're around $190-220 where as a good WiFi AP would only be around $160-180 at a guess. Considering I'll be stringing this whole thing together on a portion of a Shoestring budget, $30 is something I could use elsewhere. Still, a fun concept, I'll admit. *
* * *Question though. Last I tried, you could only connect WiFi adapters to other adapters on a 1:1 basis. You couldn't have one computer with one WiFi adapter (dongle or PCI card, and yes it's been that long since I looked at WiFi. PCIe hadn't been released yet) serving multiple computers wirelessly. To serve three wireless clients, you needed three wireless adapters or an Access Point. Now if this has changed then I'm all ears. In theory, at least in my mind, what I could end up doing in that case is having the single AP I turn into a bridge and have it served by a USB dongle on the machine that serves the PXE clients, and could even have my TV get access to Netflix and what not using WiFi. I like this, if it's going to be very easy. If you know of a particular USB dongle that could serve this purpose I'm all ears!* * * *Thanks so much for all the help so far folks!* * * *--- Dan* On Wed, Mar 13, 2013 at 11:18 PM, Levi Pearson <[email protected]>wrote: > On Wed, Mar 13, 2013 at 1:43 AM, Dan Egli <[email protected]> wrote: > > *Hmmm.... Hadn't thought of a bridge. That may work. I'll have to look > into > > that.* > > > > *Any recommendations as to a good bridge and a good wireless AP? If I'm > > going to use a wireless AP I'd prefer one I can flash with the OpenWRT > > firmware. I understand that's basically Linux for the AP? I'm trying to > > maintain as much of a pure Linux environment as I can.* > > I would look for one that is supported via the mac80211 driver > interface in the kernel. This is part of the new linux wireless > infrastructure, and it represents the class of devices where more of > the WiFi protocol stack is implemented in the kernel driver rather > than in the wireless chip itself. This allows a great deal of the > higher-level functionality to be implemented in a uniform way across > the chips that use this driver. If you could get one of these that's > sufficiently capable in a USB dongle, you could even set up a > raspberry pi board to act as a wireless bridge or access point fairly > easily. > > The new linux wireless subsystem is actually pretty well documented at > wireless.kernel.org, so it's worth checking out if you plan on doing > anything fancy with WiFi in Linux. > > --Levi > > /* > PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net > Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug > Don't fear the penguin. > */ > /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
