[lug] OT: Wiring recommendations?

[Nate Duehr]

On Tue, Mar 19, 2002 at 01:52:51PM -0700, Elyse Grasso wrote:
> I think the failures were mid-morning and mid-afternoon, and our own 
> microwave doesn't seem to affect anything. 

Interesting.  Is there a possibility of another 802.11b network in the
buildings you travel to or in the office there where you're having the
problem? 

802.11b "channels" are actually overlapping frequency ranges.  On the Lucent cards, if I remember correctly, you can use channels 1, 6, and 11.  More than three AP's in a particular area and they'll interfere with each other, even if configured with those channels.  Since it's a sliding range, if someone in the building is using say, channel 3 already, you'd have to slide up to the top of the range to stay away from them.

> The training lab uses wireless because it's portable: if a customer wants 
> on-site training, the laptops and wireless cards and wap pack up into 2 big 
> cases, then get unpacked in a conference room, and poof! we have a training 
> lab all installed and configured and ready to go. At the moment we're using 
> bottom of the line Linksys wireless gear (this was all put together on a 
> shoestring) and I'm sure the configuration is sub-optimal, to put it mildly. 
> We have lots of problems with collisions (made worse by the behavior of 
> Win2K, which most of our clients want us to train on). 

Gotcha... other than the caveat about frequencies already in use above,
it sure seems like a cinch to want wireless for a mobile training
environment!

> I'll check the Linksys docs for CTS/RTS mode. Thanks. 

I can't remember if I have seen that in the Linksys Windows client or
not... hmm.

> The training lab student machines dual-boot Win2k and KRUD, but we can't yet 
> do Linux training on them.  Dell 2500s have a broken apm implementation (apm 
> crashes in the BIOS at Linux boot time), which stops the pcmcia ports from 
> working. However, 7.2 recognizes the builtin ethernet ports (7.1 did not), so 
> if we get a training job that wants Linux client machines we may need to 
> invest in a hub and some cables. 

Couldn't one kernel be rebuilt without APM support and copied to the
other machines?  Just a thought...

> Our current training courses are for Rational ClearCase and associated 
> products, on Windows and Unix

I've heard good things about Rational stuff from programmers who've used
it.  Not being much of a (good) programmer, I tend to shy away from
expensive design toys like Rational, but those that code complex things
seem to like the tools.  

-- 
Nate Duehr <nate at natetech.com>