Re: wireless recommendations
>>On Fri, 2003-08-15 at 11:55, Jesse Meyer wrote:
>>On Fri, 15 Aug 2003, nori heikkinen wrote:
> >
> >> hey all,
> > >
> > >my roommate (who has a laptop) and i are thinking about either
running
> >> cables all the way around our apartment, or setting up a wireless
> > >point from my debian box. i'd enjoy doing the latter, but before
i>
> >> buy the hardware, i thought i'd check with my most valuable
> >> information source about what debianites are happy with in terms
>>>of
> >> brands, models, &c.
> > >
> > >any particular suggestions / references / aversions?
> >
> >You should google for more information, but from what I've seen,
> >orinoco and prisms are the most popular and widely supported
>>wireless
> >cards.
> >
> >I've looked into it, but there was several factors that made me
>>stay
>> away from it:
>
> >1) cost - wireless is more expensive then wired
> >2) security - even with `strong' WEP, a wireless link is easily
> > compromized. If you really care about your security,
> > wireless needs either an encrypted tunnel or IPSEC, and the
> > wireless segment should be firewalled.[1]
> >3) speed - 100mbit twisted pair will be faster then wireless.
> >
> >~ Jesse Meyer, tripping over cables left around the house
> >
> >[1] I'm overly paranoid, I know.
>Running cable around attics, dropping it through walls, etc can
>be a hassle, but Jesse's 3 points are still valid, especially
>since you could probably get a LUG member to connect the wires
>to jacks for a case or 2 of beer...
>And if you run Cat5e, then you are ready for gigabit ethernet,
>and wireless will never touch that.
>--
>+---------------------------------------------------------------+
>| Ron Johnson, Jr. Home: ron.l.johnson@cox.net |
>| Jefferson, LA USA |
>| |
>| "Man, I'm pretty. Hoo Hah!" |
>| Johnny Bravo |
Wireless has a few advantages, if you have a laptop you can go almost
anywhere, backyard, porch, garage without having to worry about
cables. As far as security is concerned yes it can be a problem,
but if you have 128 wep, change the keys once in a while you probably
won't have a problem.
Also in order to have someone crack wep, you need a lot of activity on
the wireless clients. They need to intercept packets that are
vulnerable, for a basic home setup if internet surfing and a few
downloads this could take weeks just to get the needed packets, then
you have to break the passwords. So unless a neighbor or a van is
parked outside your house for weeks at a time I wouldn't worry about
it in a home setting. Most people will move on to another target,
because chances are people do not change the defaults on their
gateway routers, and are much easier to break into.
Also another thing you need to remember is that most cable, DSL lines
are limited to around 2 -3 Mbs download, which depends on a good
route to the server. Also its even less if you upload, so most of
the time 802.11X will be adequate for most things.
As an example my wife will not even sit down infront of my desktop,
she would much perfer to use her notebook. Also its handy if you
need to get something done, but the wife is upset that you never
watch movies with her, just use the laptop.
As far as gear is concerned the stuff you get at bestbuy, or compusa
is lacking for serious WiFi. When WiFi first came out I went out and
ordered an SMC unit. It was a first generation unit, and would drop
packets, and such, being new to the scene I thought it was how it was
I didn't know any better. My wife thought it was normal, and I had
a cable going to the switch which worked great.
Then two years latter, ie Monday my SMC totally went kaputz, my wife
was upset, so I went down and bought a Linksys.
She wanted her internet on her laptop, ASAP set it up and immediately
it started to drop massive packets, independent of range I could be
sitting in front of the antennas and it would still stutter, drop
packets, worse than my SMC. Also the wireless clients were having
signal problems even without wep. Since I thought that the new gear
would have most of the bugs worked for 802.11b I went against my
better judgement. Granted I could of picked a bad unit, but from
passed experience, and online group search I would not consider it.
Think about it most of the gear comes from one or two manufactures
which companies rebadge with their logo's.
So if you are serious about WiFi I would buy good quality gear.
Do you already have a ethernet switch? or a router? If you do then
just buy a wireless AP, it seems that the Wireless APs are better
quality then the wireless routers. Then if you want to move up to a
faster wireless protocol all you have to do is get a new AP.
Also if something fails you just replace that part instead of the
whole unit. Also it is somewhat future proof, cause a good router
will last years, same with a good switch. It might be a little more
expensive to do it this way but at least you will keep your network
running if your wireless setup does break.
What I decided to do was order a Zyxel Zywall 2xw when it comes in I
will take the Linksys back for a refund. I have read good reviews
about this brand, and products which seem to be industrial quality,
for reasonable prices. You can check out the webpage and a few other
sites that cater to Wifi.
http://store.zyxel.com/usshopcat/product_info.php?cPath=24&products_id=133
http://wifinetnews.com/
Good luck with your decision;
Rthoreau
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