How to build a Linux-based wireless router out of spare parts (1998)
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Re: How to build a Linux-based wireless router out of spare parts (1998)
#2This is a wild Time Machine. ISA cards. 28.8 upload. Thanks for sharing.
Re: How to build a Linux-based wireless router out of spare parts (1998)
#3This is a wild Time Machine. ISA cards. 28.8 upload. Thanks for sharing.
…and the prices! He is “happy” because using those spare parts he can spend only 1300$ for a wireless router.
Re: How to build a Linux-based wireless router out of spare parts (1998)
#4This is a wild Time Machine. ISA cards. 28.8 upload. Thanks for sharing.
And the single-disk router distro! In the Coyote Linux derivative I ran that for years, back in the early noughties, on the one of several beat-up parts machines I then had which could run two 3C509 cards at once - who knows how I laid hands on those, but once I got it working it was a reliable enough setup for the whole more-or-less group house whose slant-ceilinged back attic room I lived in. Unlike in the article, we were within DSL range of the nearest CO and had no load coils to worry about, so any POTS extension would do - hence being able to have the whole house's network ops up in my little garret. I had a couple of desks and tables in there plus my little twin mattress and an Ikea Poang chair - and, thanks to a long run of Cat-5 I'd somehow managed to scrounge, not only 802.11b coverage for the whole house with one of the early-model WRT-54Gs, but even rudimentary internet TV for the living room with another hacked-together beige box and an All-in-Wonder card bought used with an employee discount from the cheesy little computer store I'd spent a few months working at. We even had four-player Gauntlet with MAME and a few cheap USB 1.0 controllers.
Thin times by the standards of the life I live these days, but good times, too.
Re: How to build a Linux-based wireless router out of spare parts (1998)
#5This is a wild Time Machine. ISA cards. 28.8 upload. Thanks for sharing.
And the single-disk router distro! In the Coyote Linux derivative I ran that for years , back in the early noughties, on the one of several beat-up parts machines I then had which could run two 3C509 cards at once - who knows how I laid hands on those, but once I got it working it was a reliable enough setup for the whole more-or-less group house whose slant-ceilinged back attic room I lived in. Unlike in the article…
Floppydistros! The memories!
Booting linux on an internet café from a floppydistro because I didn’t really know what linux was and my parents wouldn’t let me try stuff on the “home computer”.
What was it, coyote linux? Can’t really remember now :)
Re: How to build a Linux-based wireless router out of spare parts (1998)
#6At the time, using KA9Q on top of DOS was also a great way to accomplish the same outcome.
Re: How to build a Linux-based wireless router out of spare parts (1998)
#7This is a wild Time Machine. ISA cards. 28.8 upload. Thanks for sharing.
…and the prices! He is “happy” because using those spare parts he can spend only 1300$ for a wireless router.
It seemed reasonable at the time. I briefly used a DEC Multia with two Aironet LM4500 PCMCIA wireless cards as a point-to-point backhaul and access point. That was a lot of money for hardware but the cable company wanted tens of thousands of dollars to bring coax a very short distance to the site, and ADSL in those days was still something you could expect to deliver just 128kbps upstream under ideal conditions.
Re: How to build a Linux-based wireless router out of spare parts (1998)
#8What if I'd like to build a linux router out of modern hardware?
I would like to stop upgrading routers every two years (maybe just upgrade the wifi cards in it), and have full control over router's UI (command line is fine).
Is this a stupid idea?
Re: How to build a Linux-based wireless router out of spare parts (1998)
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
And the single-disk router distro! In the Coyote Linux derivative I ran that for years , back in the early noughties, on the one of several beat-up parts machines I then had which could run two 3C509 cards at once - who knows how I laid hands on those, but once I got it working it was a reliable enough setup for the whole more-or-less group house whose slant-ceilinged back attic room I lived in. Unlike in the article…
Floppydistros! The memories! Booting linux on an internet café from a floppydistro because I didn’t really know what linux was and my parents wouldn’t let me try stuff on the “home computer”. What was it, coyote linux? Can’t really remember now :)
Coyote, yeah! Same one I ran, and maybe the first time I ever actually put Linux to a useful purpose beyond satisfying my own intellectual curiosity - my first first time being a few years earlier with a Slackware floppy install on a Toshiba Tecra laptop. I had to scrape together enough disks for the A set, download and image them from the Windows 95 install, and then print out enough docs to figure out how to get dialup working again once I was done repaving the machine with a then totally unfamiliar environment - I'd bought the laptop used with summer-job money and it hadn't come with OS install media, so I either got it working or I was just SOL, with no access any longer from Tennessee to the mostly West Coast-based social circle that Internet access had made available to me, and no obvious way to recover the machine to a working state. Luckily, it didn't come to that! Good times. :D
Re: How to build a Linux-based wireless router out of spare parts (1998)
#10What if I'd like to build a linux router out of modern hardware? I would like to stop upgrading routers every two years (maybe just upgrade the wifi cards in it), and have full control over router's UI (command line is fine). Is this a stupid idea?
Not a stupid idea, lots of people apre are doing it with custom machine using OpenWrt.