Wireless access points: consumer, commercial, or DIY?

[Doug Barton]

Doug Poland wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I'm a long-time FreeBSD user (servers, desktops, laptops) and have lately
> become disillusioned with the quality of consumer WAPs. 

This is an are where you usually get what you pay for, unless you are 
unlucky enough to buy something expensive that sucks. :-/

I personally have had very good luck with the older versions (4 and 
3.1) of the Linksys WRT54G (the models that were Linux based). I've 
run various 3rd party firmwares, as well as the stock firmware and 
always had good results. The ones I'm running now are 3 years old and 
not showing any signs of slowing down.

I'm currently running X-Wrt which is the OpenWrt code base with a 
better web interface and bug fixes. The OpenWrt developers froze their 
"whiterussian" release sometime back to focus on development for their 
new "kamikaze" branch, but that branch has taken a few left turns and 
hasn't settled down yet. You can read about the differences on the 
OpenWrt web site. I'm happy with the latest build of the X-Wrt 
whiterussian branch. Use the default_extra version since it includes 
the wireless stuff. I am also using tunnelbroker.net to add 
native-looking IPv6 to my home network. Here is what I did to 
accomplish that: http://www.tunnelbroker.net/forums/index.php?topic=106.0

Finally, Warner posted a good article on how to roll your own with 
FreeBSD: 
http://bsdimp.blogspot.com/2008/07/quick-guide-to-freebsd-hostap-for.html


hth,

Doug

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