[lug] Wireless router shopping

[John Karns]

On Wed, 10 Nov 2004, David Morris wrote:

> On Wed, Nov 10, 2004 at 06:12:00PM -0700, Thomas R Detman wrote:
>> I'm looking for advice and options to network most or all
>> of these things together.  Also what pitfalls to watch out
>> for.
>
> I highly recommend the Linksys WRT54G, a 802.11 b/g AP,
> 4-port switch, and firewall (with WAN port).
>
> You can download Linux firmware for it, I recommend that
> created by Sveasoft as they seem to have done the best job.
> Sveasoft has a free stable release and a pricy development,
> but stable, release with more features.  I simply use the
> free version.
>
> The Sveasoft firmware is a fairly standard Linux
> installation running the 2.4 kernel and using IPTables if
> you want to customize the firewall rules more than it does
> by default.  Normal management is done via the web
> interface, but you can also telnet/ssh into it if you enable
> those servers in the web configuration.

I've also been using one since last December, and it's been working
wonderfully.  I flashed mine to a Sveasoft release named Samadhi2 v2.00,
which was free at the time.

On more recent visits to the Sveasoft site, I could no longer find a
freely downloadable version - they've gone to a $20 / yr subscription
scheme - although I did find one by Googling a bit.  That version,
Satori-4, ISTR carried a notice that sshd is not supported, so I haven't
updated from Samadhi.

A couple of weeks ago the Linux Show had a short discussion of wi-fi 
routers, and the linksys in particular.  What stood out was that according 
to one of them, his experience had been that several had burned out after 
a year of use, but at a cost of $60 or $70, he just routinely replaces 
them.  At least with the custom firmware, the transmitter power 
is configurable.  Perhaps it's a good idea not to push it too hard.

For one interesting article, see

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20040527.html

There's no shortage of info to found about them on the 'net.  A while back
I stumbled across a how-to article on how to weather-proof and heat sink
them to boost the power for a outdoor use.  Great stuff.

-- 
John Karns