My Wife is wanting to go wireless in the house and I am trying to find out which one would best meet our needs. She runs a Acer Desktop from Walmart with Windows Vista and her Laptop is a IBM T-23 with Windows XP. I run an IBM M-41, !.8ghz,1gig RAM,running Ubuntu 8.04. My laptop is a Panasonic CF-48, 1.6ghz, 512mb RAM,running dual boot Ubuntu 8.04 and Mepis 7.0. Our house is a remodeled Medical Clinic about 120 feet long by 30 feet wide. Outside I have a metal Quonset Hut Motorcyle shop 25 feet wide by 30 feet long approximately 60 feet away and along side of the house. I use my laptop in the shop. I wish to know mainly which routers are Linux and Windows friendly and Have the range to meet my needs from House to Shop. Any input would be greatly appreciated.

I've had great success with Linksys equipment working well with various Linux distros. Check out their website and search for their Wireless N routers, then google that model + your linux distro and see what the reviews are.

You might would also consider getting a wireless repeater to extend the signal to your shed if the signal doesn't quite cover the distance. Depending on where in the house you put the wireless router.

I know nothing about this particular brand of hut, but note with a little alarm that it is made of metal. While it won't be perfect, metal does tend to make a good radio shield, so I have little confidence that you will be able to use wireless succesfully in there, given that and the range. Of course, you can try it out, but don't be surprised if its problematic.

If practicable, you should consider running an ethernet cable out to your hut. Alternatively, you could consider an antenna on the roof of the hut, but wireless gear with detachable antennas is becoming less common.

I appreciate the input. Knowing I might need a repeater and or antenna or even running cable is great to know. Linskys is a good brand. Not being super computer savvy I am very grateful for your guys input.

Have you checked out the LQ.org hardware pages yet? http://www.linuxquestions.org/hcl/

After rereading your post, thought you might be interested in the following link to a signal booster, which you can make for free!!! Looks slightly weird, but it apparently works. Will cost you a wee bit of time and only needs a small amount of cardboard, tinfoil and glue. Maybe this will help if signal strength is a problem. http://www.freeantennas.com/projects...te2/index.html

Thank you Thane. I bookmarked for making up later.

With Wireless N slowly grabbing up the market, its getting to the point you can get A/B/G routers for a song.

I have this one.. Has everything I want, SPI, WPA, and really simple to set up. I have a small windows partition, so I just used the software that came w/ it. WEP is so easy to crack, I consider WPA a necessity.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...8108&CatId=373

or if you don't mind the refurb route..

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...6987&CatId=373

I'd also recommend running Cat6 out to your shop. All you really need is a shovel and a little PVC pipe. When I did something similar to this, I had quite a bit of 1.5in PVC, and it was plenty big enough obviously. You might be able to get by w/ 3/4in CPVC, which would be cheaper. I'm not real sure if you can just bury the cable and leave it exposed to the elements.