I use a 3com HomeConnect WiFi router. It sits after my cable modem and has space for three wired connections plus any wireless devices. It also has a modest firewall and does NAT and DHCP.
Cost was about �250, and its about �125 for a PCMCIA card (I've got a netgear one). You can get PCI cards for any desktops too - they're about the same price It's worth looking out for a PCMCIA card with an XJACK (i.e. the antenna retracts when not in use). And make sure you get 802.11b - 11MBps. There is a 1MBps wireless thing (from Intel I think) which you'll find in PC World. You'd need to add a wee hub if you wanted four wired machines though. And you would want to put the WiFi box on your middle floor. I also recently tried a Netgear ME102. It's just WiFi, with no NAT or DHCP. If you've got cable modem you'd probably want to get the MR314 which contains the ME102 plus the other NAT etc stuff. I've had ranges of - I dunno - over 150 ft. (Spec says about 300 ft I think). But that wasn't at home. In my house, with plaster and lathe walls and an old upright piano (a.k.a. diffraction gratings and faraday cage) it can drop to under 30 ft. Hmm - nearly forgot. My laptop isn't running Linux! t -------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.lug.org.uk http://www.linuxportal.co.uk http://www.linuxjob.co.uk http://www.linuxshop.co.uk --------------------------------------------------------------------
