[Wlug] Linksys Router

[John Stoffel]

Gary> I recently upgraded my router to a WRT45GS and have been having
Gary> a bear of a time trying to figure out why, when I boot Linux, I
Gary> can't get an IP address from the router but with Windows I can.

I've always thought it was a good ideal to seperate the Wireless
Access Point (AP) hardware from that of the Router which gives me my
firewall and other services.  I can place both where they do the most
good, and keep the complexity level down, since I just have two
devices which each do a well defined job.

Gary> It worked with the old router. It works with Windows. There are
Gary> no DHCP tweaks in the router. What the hell is wrong?

Linksys sucks?

Gary> Turns out that there a bug in the router. It doesn't like
Gary> Linux-based DHCP requests. This is a known issue and apparently
Gary> Linksys has no intention of fixing it. But they did release a
Gary> Linux-compatible version of the router instead.

Gary> So my options are to either by the Linux-compatible version or
Gary> find another brand that supports Linux (or better, doesn't
Gary> exclude Linux) and is as good wireless performance-wise as the
Gary> Linksys routers.

Gary> Any recommendations?

Gary> I know there is an open source firmware product that can be
Gary> applied, but I'm not ready to try that yet as I work from home a
Gary> lot and I'm in the middle of an important project so I need a
Gary> stable VPN connection right now.

Is your VPN endpoint on the home computer, or is it on the Linksys
box?  That would be the deciding factor.  If it's on the computer,
then I'd doubt that going to the Linux compatible router hardware (or
just updating the firmware) would have any impact at all on the VPN.

Good luck!
John