Wireless routers

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Thu, Jun 09, 2011 at 08:19:33PM -0400, Chris F.A. Johnson wrote:
>    Right.

A wireless router is normally used to create such a network, so since
that isn't what you need you probably don't need one.

>    So what do I need?

Most likely if it is for just one machine, a PCI or PCI express or USB
wireless adapter.  I would guess that the network is most likely 2.4GHz
802.11g or perhaps 802.11n.  Any recent laptop would have that built in
of course.  A desktop would not.  Finding one that works with linux for
sure can be a bit of a hassle.

Another option (although strangely often more expensive) is an adapter
that conencts to a normal network port and connects to the wireless
network.  Those are usually mainly used for legacy devices that can't
have native wireless added.

It is also possible on _some_ wireless routers to turn them into wireless
bridges (which is actually what the device I mentioned above is), and use
it as a way to connect multiple computers to that router (with routing
mode turned off) to the wireless network.  If you have multiple
computers/devices to connect that don't do wireless themselves, this
might be the best option.  There are also devices that are only meant
as bridges.  One example that can do this would be
http://canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=27_356&item_id=020575
D-Link DAP-1522, which can run either 2.4 or 5GHz operation and can
connect 4 local devices to the wireless network.  It is NOT a router at
all as far as I can tell.  It even has gigabit ethernet ports which is
rather nice.

-- 
Len Sorensen
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