Re: House wireless/wired router: choices? Plus wireless neophyte questions.
On 10/03/08 00:46, Chris Metzler wrote:
Hi folks. Been a looooong time since I've posted to this list.
I have exactly zero experience with wireless -- I've never owned a laptop,
and have just never needed it. My gf, as part of her job, needs to bring
home a laptop with that other OS on it, and wants wireless access to
our broadband.
We currently have a DSL connection: phone to DSL modem, ethernet out the
back of the DSL modem to our one desktop machine. I'm assuming that what
I want is a wireless router with LAN ports: ethernet cable from the DSL
modem to the wireless router, and ethernet cable from the wireless router
to the desktop machine while her laptop talks to the router by wireless.
We have a static IP address; I'm presuming that this wired/wireless router
will need to be configured with that address, and then will do NAT with
the desktop and the laptop.
Yes. My router gets a routable "external" IP address from the ISP,
but I had to *also* give it an "internal", non-routable IP address
(which I chose to be 192.168.1.251).
Look for the Linksys WRT54GL. Natively runs Linux, and replacement
OSs (like OpenWRT or Tomato) can easily be installed.
1. Does what I just wrote make sense? Am I getting this correctly?
Yes.
2. If I'm on the right track, what about IP addresses for the desktop
and the laptop? Do I have to set them manually to addresses within
a non-routeable block? Or do such routers typically do DHCP or something
like that?
You can do both, at the same time, since routers all "do" DHCP, but
also let you specify a certain number of static IP addresses.
For example, I specified two static addresses: 192.168.1.10 (which
is my computer's address), and 192.168.1.11 (which is our printer's
address). Any other device on the network gets a dynamic address
from the router's DHCP server.
3. What about configuring the router (with the static IP address, any
DHCP operating parameters, etc.)? Since my desktop will be wired, I'd
like to be able to configure the router using my desktop -- which means
using Linux. If an application on an accompanying DVD is needed to
configure the router, I'm guessing that app is only going to work on
that other operating system. Or are there routers out there that are
configurable from a Linux machine in a straightforward manner?
Sure. I had a P.O.S. Netgear RP614v2 wired router, and now have a
wired/wireless Linksys WRT54GL. Although both come with a CD, they
aren't needed (as long as you have a wired component of your network).
4. (most important) For someone moderately competent who somehow
has made it this far without learning much about wireless, what would
you suggest I read? Googling turns up thousands of pages of FAQs and
HOWTOs and so on (some of which are ancient -- but that doesn't mean
they're not useful, of course). There's lots of stuff out there;
but being ignorant, I don't know enough to know what's relevant and
what's out of date. What would *you* suggest I read?
Maybe I've been doing this too long, but if you're competent at
managing your own computer, then modern menu-driven routers should
be easy enough to figure out without much documentation.
Thanks much for any info,
--
Ron Johnson, Jr.
Jefferson LA USA
"Do not bite at the bait of pleasure till you know there is no
hook beneath it." -- Thomas Jefferson
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