[CLUE-Talk] Re: Seeking recommendations on router for SOHO

[Jeffery Cann]

On Friday 07 June 2002 12:50 pm, Mike Benavides wrote:
> Jeff:
>
> Can you upgrade the firmware from Linux on your router? My Linksys I
> have to bring in a windoze laptop to update the firmware. This I quite a
> pain.

Yep.  I downloaded a firmware update onto my Linux box. gunzip'd it and then 
pointed the browser to the file.  Worked perfectly.

Jeff

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From: Nate Duehr <nate at natetech.com>
To: lug at lug.boulder.co.us
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Subject: [CLUE-Talk] Re: [lug] Seeking recommendations on router for SOHO
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We have a boatload of people using the Linksys routers in a
multi-national project for VoIP and ham radio that I'm involved heavily
with... everyone seems very happy with them.

Only gotcha we've seen is that the combo wired/wireless Linksys (not the
one you're looking at) has two different versions of hardware.  Revision
1 and Revision 2.  DO NOT buy one that doesn't say "Revision 2"
somewhere on it with a sticker.  

It'll work okay for TCP, but has a massive problem with UDP packets
arriving out of sequence on the wired side when the wireless portion of
the router is active.  Disabling the wireless portion the problem
somewhat goes away.  You should hear what that does to VoIP
applications... ugggh.

The Linksys will do some minimal logging to another machine via syslog,
if I understand what I've seen on other people's routers -- I don't own
one.  (Why bother, a cheap Pentium-I based linux box running iptables
with multiple NIC's will do the whole job... and other things besides! 
GRIN.)

On Wed, 2002-06-05 at 11:32, bof wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I'm thinking about setting up a small home network and have been looking 
> at routers to use with my Cisco 675 in the bridging mode.
> 
> The two in my price range are the
> 
>     Linksys BEFSR41 
> (http://www.linksys.com/Products/product.asp?grid=23&prid=20)
> 
> and the
> 
>     Netgear RP114 
> (http://www.netgear.com/product_view.asp?xrp=4&yrp=12&zrp=93)

-- 
Nate Duehr, nate at natetech.com


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Subject: [CLUE-Talk] Re: [lug] Seeking recommendations on router for SOHO
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>>>>> "bof" == bof  <bof at pcisys.net> writes:

bof> I'm thinking about setting up a small home network and have been
bof> looking at routers to use with my Cisco 675 in the bridging mode.

bof>     Linksys BEFSR41
bof>     Netgear RP114

bof> So I'm seeking opinions/experiences about these. 

I have an RP114, and I like it.  I'm using it with a cable modem (and
there's a 10.mumble address assigned its WAN port), so I don't believe
I've actually tested the bridging mode.  But it's worked quite well so
far.

I think there might also be a D-Link device in the same general price
and feature range.  Yes, the DI-704

   http://www.dlink.com/products/broadband/di704/

Current prices (courtesy pricewatch.com):

   BEFSR41 - 50$
   DI-704  - 50$
   RP114   - 60$

Having pointed that out, I had a very miserable experience with D-Link
earlier this year (with one of their wireless networking pci cards),
and their tech support was somewhere between "miserable" and
"hostile".  So I wouldn't really recommend them...

bof> OTOH, for that matter, if anyone has recommendation of a good
bof> router other than these (preferably less than $100, but I might
bof> go as high as $200), I would like to hear it.

The traditional answer here is to find an old pc, throw two network
cards in it, and install a minimal/hardened linux distro on it.
Guaranteed to be the most flexible answer, if the most difficult to do
initial setup with.  This is in fact the cheapest option in terms of
money, but also probably requires the most time.  (And if you don't
already have a hub or switch, buying one pretty much makes up the
difference in cost to one of the products above.)

t.