On Mon, Jan 30, 2017 at 08:35:57AM -0500, Stewart Russell via talk wrote: > So my WRT-350N decided to stop being a router last night and to start being > a brick instead. All ports and WiFi appear to be dead. People have > discussed the latest and greatest here - so what's the best basic router > for: > > * enough wireless range for a smallish two storey house;
I have my router in the basement and it works fine on the main floor and upstairs. > * able to connect and configure about 15 wireless clients and 4 wired (one > wired in a DMZ) > > * probably going to stick with stock firmware, as the Linksys one on the > WRT-350N was pretty much okay for the last 8 years; and > > * would be nice if it wasn't unholy expensive, was available retail today, > and was likely to last at least another 8 years. > > My network setup is very simple: just internal IPs assigned by MAC address > via DHCP, and locked in the router. Yes, I manually copy /etc/hosts files > about: don't judge. It worked fine until the router went kablooie. DNS is great and all, but if you only have a few machines, then hosts files do work fine. I setup local DNS at my parents place, but for some reason can't seem to get around to doing it at home. I just type the IP address. :( > I'm wondering if I even need a router, though. The Sagemcom box from > Teksavvy (rented from Bell) has WiFi and four LAN ports. What does having > my own router do for me? Well potentially nothing, if the sagecom has all the features you want. I run with the wifi and router part of my modem disabled because I want dual band wifi and better performance. Also I want gigabit switched ports, not 100MBit (which is what the sagecom has, as does the awful Cellpipe I am still using). > Recommendations and advice welcomed. Assume I have no idea what I'm doing > if you haven't already. I am currently very happy with my WRT1900ACv2 (aka WRT1900ACS if buying it now). Lots of flash, ram, cpu power, good wifi, USB3 and eSataP ports, gigabit switch, etc. I must admit that I barely looked at the original firmware since I wanted to run LEDE on it (essentially openWRT). LEDE has worked great so far. Canada computers appears to sell it for $240 currently, or $170 for a refurbished one. Someone who really wants options might prefer the WRT3200ACM which has twice the flash, a slightly more advanced switch chip, and the CPU clocked about 20% higher as well as a second 5GHz radio for $300. -- Len Sorensen --- Talk Mailing List talk@gtalug.org https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk