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Re: Using Debian as an Access Point?



We are using the Linksys WRT54G at home, but with a different firmware (http://sourceforge.net/projects/wifi-box/) and haven't had any problems with it.

It's been up around 2 months now (last reboot was the firmware upgrade) and everything is good. Clients range from ~50m to about 2k's away, with 2k's away (not exactly sure of equipment) get around 40Mb/s.

Marcel Weber wrote:
Olle Eriksson schrieb:

What exactly is the problem with the wireless routers? I was just about to buy one and would like to know more about you experiences. Loose settings, crash? That doesn't sound good. I was hoping to make it easier for myself by having all that stuff separated from my linux machine. Should I not?


Well most consumer access points are crap: I tried the following devices:

- D-Link DWL 614+ (revision A with two antennas) Bad Wireless range. Router part was more or less okay but not very performant.

- SMC 2804WBR: Crashed all the time. Lost it's settings. Hang after 36 hours uptime. A real nightmare.

- Zyxel G-2000: Quite stable. Hangs once or twice a month. Router part has problems with to many connections (especially p2p). Newer firmware is buggy and unstable.

I for my part would recommend a decent access point WITHOUT any routing functions and a seperate router (best would be a linux box). Alternatively, for the adventerious building a dedicated Linux WLAN box. You could take a mini-ITX-system like the Via EPIA CL6000E. Passively cooled, featuring a PCMCIA card slot for a WLAN card and with a moderate power consumption would it make a good choice. Of course, such a system would still be bigger and more expensive than a WLAN router from the shelf. Of course if it is just the size that matters, you could buy a industry biscuit PC. With these you can even get rid of the PC power supplies.

There is a linux based wireless router from linksys, but I don't have any experiences with it. But I would expect that the community can improve the software.

Don't think that problems of $50 to $100 consumer devices will ever get fixed. There IS a reason why "professional" access points are still selling at $1000. So do a longer google research for seeing if other users are having the problems with a specific model before buying it. Be aware, that most vendors sell different hardware under the same name. There exist at least two DWL 614+ models which differ completely.

Just my 2 cents

Regards

Marcel


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