Hi,

I'm building a new desktop PC and I also want to use it as a wifi access point/router. I've bought the Zotac H55 ITX main board which came with a Ralink 2860 wifi adapter in a full-length mini PCIe slot.

Unfortunately for me, I've learned that Ralink adapters (at least in linux) don't support master mode (e.g. operating as an AP).

Could you please recommend an alternative that I could buy to replace the Ralink card that has good linux support, stability and performance and that would run in master mode?

I am thinking about Intel Link 1000 mini PCIe card http://www.amazon.com/Intel-WiFi-Lin.../dp/B002LM386I The amazon page says that they come in both full length and half length size and though the picture shows a half length size, I suppose it is the full length version. Do you have experience with it? Would you recommend it?

Thank you,
R.

From what I found for previous mini-ITX motherboards from Zotac, you are stuck with that WiFi card because the motherboard only allows what is on its white list. The white list is the devices that only have permission to work.

You could use just a wireless router that is compatible with third-party firmware. The third-party firmware uses Linux. Another possibility is use a netbook with an Ethernet jack and modified the WiFi antenna to use an external antenna. You do not have to modify the antenna to be external, but having it be external it will a have better range for WiFi. It will not have dual antennas, so speed will be lower than other devices with two or more antennas.

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Hi Electro and thak you for your response!

Do you have a citation for that? I've googled a bit about this and I haven't found any mention of this issue.

Obviously I could just buy another router but that's not the point of this post.

R.

[QUOTE=r0b0;4148841
Obviously I could just buy another router but that's not the point of this post.
[/QUOTE]
What is the point of this thread. It seems it is an ass thread. Since you already have the motherboard, go ahead what you are planning to do. Sorry, that I helped.

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I've replaced the Ralink card with a Broadcom one and it works just fine with hostapd.