Building Wireless Access Point Linux

[jmmitc06]

This may be a little off topic even for the lounge, but does anyone here have any experience building wireless access points using Linux distros such as ClearOS or ClarkConnect? I'm getting fed up with my router/AP acting up and the solution would be a homebrewed one. Any ideas on 802.11n or ac adaptors that will function as an access point under a distro similar to the ones mentioned above, I can't find much out there on the interwebs about any specific cards.

 

[Llando88]

I've reflashed an old WRT54G I got at the Goodwill for $2 with DD-WRT.

www.dd-wrt.com | Unleash Your Router

I believe it's Linux based?

It has several features I like, such as the ability to select antennas, and vary the transmit power.

Mainly it allows me to set up a wireless repeater mode for us to rebroadcast external AP signals locally inside our RV when on the road. I've added a 2W external booster and a 18 dB 16 element Yagi to it.

What are you hoping to achieve?

 

[jmmitc06]

Basically, I'm going to have to get a new wireless AP before too long. The APs I like, while not very expensive are about half what a small intel atom embedded solution would cost + the wireless adaptor. I could reflast a netgear with dd-wrt, but instead of using a router, I intend to use an actual x86 full fledged computer and manually configure the routing tables and such so it'll be an AP. Basically then I can run VPNs, firewall, apache server etc. on that machine that could serve as the AP, makes the network more serviceable and hopefully will improve some of my latency / reliability issues which are killer since I work mostly from home via SSH. I know there are plenty of 802.11b cards that can be converted to access points, but I haven't seen any g/n/ac cards that are linux compatible. May not really matter all that much, but I do want the internal network as fast as possible since I stream stuff between the home server and other machines on my local network.

dd-wrt is great.

 

[Llando88]

Basically, I'm going to have to get a new wireless AP before too long. The APs I like, while not very expensive are about half what a small intel atom embedded solution would cost + the wireless adaptor. I could reflast a netgear with dd-wrt, but instead of using a router, I intend to use an actual x86 full fledged computer and manually configure the routing tables and such so it'll be an AP. Basically then I can run VPNs, firewall, apache server etc. on that machine that could serve as the AP, makes the network more serviceable and hopefully will improve some of my latency / reliability issues which are killer since I work mostly from home via SSH. I know there are plenty of 802.11b cards that can be converted to access points, but I haven't seen any g/n/ac cards that are linux compatible. May not really matter all that much, but I do want the internal network as fast as possible since I stream stuff between the home server and other machines on my local network.

dd-wrt is great.

Gotcha.

As a corporate user, i sit behind a VPN to my company network from home frequently. I go through my work PC, and my Linksys E2500 router sitting on our 10 Mbps Cable connection is fairly reliable.

Other than occasional movie streaming, however, our need for IT support inside our apartment is small.

You must have some fairly interesting networks given the need for a x86 Linux based server running Apache to support your needs at home.

Sounds like a lot of capability.

At any rate, I don't think I have the expertise or experience to help. Might be an idea to see if there is a Linux networking forum to browse for ideas on to see if there is a fix for your latency issues on the network. Wish I could help more.

Good luck...