rolling own mesh soln using BSD?

[Rogelio]

I'm looking to roll my own mesh solution using BSD and was wondering if
anyone had any pointers on hardware, cards, software packages, etc.
Up to this point, I've either played with the little solutions (e.g. dd-wrt)
or the bigger ones (Cisco, BelAir, etc).

I'm looking to experiment around with something in between -- more robust
than the dd-wrt, but not as expensive as the big player equipment.

Any ideas?