[TriLUG] RE: Wireless net equipment

[Greg Brown]

I prefer the Agere/Lucent Orinoco AP-500 access point myself.  I have a 
nearly identical setup as the one you described only I have a 10/100 switch 
which my server connects to (along with the access point and one other 
machine).  The AP-500 is a single card device that has SNMP support and WEP.  
I use Orinoco Silver cards in my laptops with WEP turned on.  Of all the 
wireless gear I've ever used the Orinoco stuff seems to have the best 
managment interface.  In fact, you don't need to configure it at all if you 
don't want to change your default SNMP string or use WEP - just plug in your 
AP to a bridge/switch/router (or use it as the primary bridge, but I don't 
suggest that really) and slap the Orinoco cards into the laptops and you can 
hit the ground running with no configuration (though the Linux box will 
require some configuration to get it going).

Anyway, all Orinoco access points are fairly easy to work with but it sounds 
like the AP-500 might do the trick if you want to add 802.11b to an existing 
network.

Greg