router recommendations

[dsr at tao.merseine.nu (dsr at tao.merseine.nu)]

On Wed, May 12, 2004 at 02:47:31PM -0400, Rich Braun wrote:
> D.E. Chadbourne <235u at comcast.net> wrote:
> The installation I currently have is this:  D-Link DI-604 firewall (slightly
> buggy but better than 2 or 3 others I looked at in detail), Linksys WRT54-G
> router (range piss-poor), ActionTec 802CAT1 card (better than the Linksys
> cards, much cheaper, but still piss-poor range).

I'm interested in what you find as buggy about the DI-604.

> I live in an antique wood-frame house with a typical back yard.  My goal would
> be to go out back and while away the afternoon with the laptop.  But (a) the
> thing won't work more than 25 feet away from the hub and (b) notebook-PC
> batteries don't last even 2 hours brand-new, let alone after you've had them
> more than a year or two.

I have perfectly good results with:
- DI-604
- Apple Airport (the original)
- Lucent/Orinoco Silver cards
- Linux, Windows 95, Windows ME on IBM Thinkpads, Compaq
  Armadas, and HP/Compaq something cheaps.
- range: the Airport is approximately in the center of the
  house. I have had perfectly reasonable results walking out to
  the back yard and lying in the hammock. Call it 70-80 feet
  straight-line.

> The configuration interface for these wi-fi cards differs from one O/S and
> from one manufacturer to the next; it almost never has any troubleshooting
> tools; and I'd *never* buy one for my grandmother.

The Windows ME laptop is my mother-in-law's machine. She has a
scrap of paper stuck to the top of the laptop detailing how to
switch to the dialup config she uses elsewhere. She's a
grandmother 7 times over now.

-dsr-

-- 
If they want to install software with "one click", they should install
a word processor.  Installing a mail server without understanding can
cause problems for the rest of the world, and so requires a little more
responsibility.					  - Charles Cazabon