On Fri, May 05, 2006 at 02:11:50PM -0400, Ralph Boland wrote: > My assumption is it shouldn`t really matter but communications is not > my area of expertise. Yeah, as long as it uses standard 802.11b or 802.11g for the wireless side (all consumer devices do) and standard Ethernet for the wired side (ditto), buying a wireless router should be completely platform-agnostic. For comparison: Personally, I use a D-Link 802.11g router at home and on the road, a Belkin 802.11g *WAP* (not router) at the office, visit an 802.11b Linksys router when I visit my folks, and have once attempted to use an Apple wireless router belonging to some relatives. The Belkin has always worked 100% flawlessly, but I had another identical Belkin that never quite worked reliably and died prematurely. I used WPA for a bit, but settled back on faster WEP because my VPN keeps me protected anyway. The D-Link has been 99% or more reliable; I think I tried resetting it once or twice, but as I recall, those turned out to be client-side issues anyway. However, I brought it to the last OCLUG meeting to help get people online, and although it worked fine for me, I had some people who couldn't get onto it. (Although I tend to shun D-Link client cards, their routers seem okay.) I've used WPA, WPA-PSK, WEP, and "open" modes without issue. The Linksys has needed to be reset on numerous occasions. Some may have again been issues with my ususual client setup, but others seemed very much like router issues. Only used it in WEP mode. The Apple router was WPA-protected, and that never worked for me, despite setting up my wpa_supplicant correctly -- I think. It worked briefly for a Windows box, but later didn't. I was told it was a bit flaky that way. But it was still theoretically 802.11 and platform- agnostic -- this surprised me, coming from Apple. (In the end, I just plugged my own D-Link router into the modem, plugged the Apple unit into mine, and everyone was happy.) Hope this helps. Good luck. Check your store's warranty policy.
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