[CentOS] Wireless Made Easy (for Home Desktops)

Tue Mar 2 20:28:27 UTC 2010
Ron Blizzard <rb4centos at gmail.com>

For those of you who use a wireless router and may work on one or two
(or even several) machines in your computer room, an AP Client is a
nice solution. When you move to another machine you can just move the
wireless net adapter to the new machine and you're up and running on
the network immediately. I've been using a D-Link G730AP for a while
-- but it's not really made for this -- it's a pocket adapter meant to
carry with you laptop. And, unlike my old Asus WL-330, it won't hook
up to a switch.

Asus also makes a more powerful, larger, wireless
AP/Client/Bridge/Reapeater, the WL-320gE. I bought two of these on
eBay and they work great as Clients (network adapters) or "Stations"
in Asus talk. They have a range of 850 meters (as compared to the
pocket AP's range of 40 meters) so, in my room, I've got the full
speed of my Cable wirelessly. It's three to four times faster than the
D-Link G730AP, and it's solid (the D-Link was iffy). But, more
importantly, I can hook it up to a wired (standard) switch and have as
many simultaneous network connections as ports in the switch (in this
case, four -- but I only use two). I've also set one up in the back of
the house with a switch for my son's computers -- through several
walls they're still getting very fast service. This is the only way
I've used this device, but a lot of people buy them as repeaters. (I
could mine up a repeater/client and my kids would have an even
stronger single, but it's not necessary.) Another feature of Asus is
that you can use it simultaneously as a bridge and as a wired client.
It works well, the documentation is a bit inadequate, but it doesn't
take long to "translate."

Anyhow, I've rambled again. The reason I bring this up is that these
things are currently selling for $25 on eBay -- which is about the
cost of mid-range USB adapter. The seller has nearly 800 of them. (I
have no relationship with the seller, except I'm a customer.)

The eBay link is at http://tinyurl.com/ykysncw

-- 
RonB -- Using CentOS 5.4