[liberationtech] DIY Wireless Router / Recommendations ?

[John Case]

Hi Robert,

On Wed, 28 Dec 2011, Robert Guerra wrote:

> I'm interested in building my own DIY Wireless Router using the combination of the new  Soekris 6501 and a compatible wireless card.
>
> Would be interested in tips and/or recommendations folks on this list might be able to provide.


Can I recommend an alternate course ?

Run pfsense (based on FreeBSD) on an old, cheap laptop.

You can find a nice laptop on ebay for $500 that will have wireless and 
ethernet, plus a few USB ports to add more ethernet or wireless ports, and 
the keyboard/monitor are built in.

So not only can you monitor the system at a glance, using the monitor that 
is attached, but you can quickly and easily maintain the system.  No 
matter how well equipped you are with serial cables and term programs, 
etc., when something comes up it's always a pain in the ass.  Instead, 
just use the attached keyboard/mouse.

You can use a compact flash card for disk, since it is pin-compatible to 
the IDE that this old laptop will use.

And finally, it has a UPS built-in :)