[GTALUG] Cheap vs Inexpensive (Was: router upgrade)

[Scott Sullivan]

On 13/07/17 05:17 PM, Scott Sullivan via talk wrote:
> On 13/07/17 05:09 PM, James Knott via talk wrote:
>> On 07/13/2017 05:03 PM, Scott Sullivan via talk wrote:
>>>  From my own experience, this is not the case. I'v been using TP-Link
>>> gear for over a decade, in personal and professional settings (having
>>> worked at an ISP). I find TP-Link to be of good quality. Some of my
>>> personal units I've had in service for 5 years.
>>
>> I have a TP-Link TL-WA901ND access point.  While it generally works
>> well, it has one bug.  It supports mulitple SSIDs and VLANs.  However,
>> the native LAN leaks into the VLAN, so that anything connected to the
>> 2nd SSID gets the wrong DHCP etc. info.
>>
>> I also have a TL-SG105E managed switch that generally does what it's
>> supposed to, but also has some bugs.
>>
>> So, I'd put them at the lower end of the quality spectrum.
> 
> Ah, this is a fair point, where I have to clarify myself.
> 
> I was speaking mostly to the quality of their hardware. Which is above 
> average for similarly priced products.
> 
> Yes, their software has bugs, and their about where I expect them to be 
> in coverage for their target market.
> 
> Cisco has equally numerous number of bugs, but their more obscure in odd 
> edge cases because their users push that it harder, and pay to be able 
> to push extremes.


On the subject of decent hardware, ruined by bad software....

DO NOT BUY ZyXEL!

You may have fond memorys from the 80s, well their software hasn't 
changed since then!

I recently bought this, and I was the sucker.

ZyXEL GS2210-24 Managed 24-port GbE L2 Switch
https://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833181415CVF


My goal was to find a decently featured switch, with the on requirement 
of it being Fan-less. This was because it was going to live in my 
livingroom / office of my apartment. I didn't want to have high speed 
fans next to my head. (I used to have a 24-port Dell PowerConnect at my 
last residence).

Fuck I've never been so pissed off by a piece of kit.

No tab completion, no proper backspacing, UI terminology that doesn't 
make sense. SSH implementation, with out of date algorithms and key 
sizes. That require special flags to decrease modern ssh's security, 
just to connect.

Only ever one firmware update published.

The webUI was even worse, it would make a UX designer cry. You want to 
configure your admin password, drill down the menu, then click a link on 
page to get an almost web-ring like set of page that aren't in the menu. 
Now repeat for every setting, so that it's a literal maze.

Oh you want to create a VLAN, we'll select every port, and not give you 
a toggle all button!

Yeah, that got RMA'd fast.

-- 
Scott Sullivan