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Re: [LUG] TP-LINK TL-WN881ND

 

Hi All

Wifi then! I have a Netgear DGN 2200: https://www.amazon.co.uk/NETGEAR-DGN2200-100UKS-Wi-Fi-Modem-Router/dp/B003FS40KU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1541239381&sr=8-1&keywords=dgn2200+netgear

It is not a brilliant router as it still relies on 100mbs Ethernet. Should I look to upgrade this item first?

Thanks

On 01/11/2018 10:42 pm, mr meowski wrote:
On 01/11/2018 20:51, Richard Brown wrote:
Hi Again

I think I ought to add.... I know about B, G and N. After that what 
should I consider. If 300mbs is slow, what would now be a good wifi 
speed please? Do I look at security with the card or should that be 
locked down by the router? When I look at this page by Amazon:

https://smile.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=sr_nr_n_1?fst=as%3Aoff&rh=n%3A430513031%2Ck%3Awifi+card&keywords=wifi+card&ie=UTF8&qid=1541105021&rnid=1642204031

It has a confusing array of cheap and not so cheap cards including the 
one I bought that is actually Amazon's choice!
Cost/benefit ratio analysis time!

Take stock of what your usage model is, what wireless standards your 
existing gear supports and what you plan to utilise it for over the next 
few years. For example I personally want absolute maximum firepower, 
every single possible bell and whistle and enterprise level features 
over an entire property with a lot of stuff connected. Budget for me is 
obviously an issue but as this is a once every decade sort of event 
complete with running cables through walls and installing a patch panel 
and so on, budget is secondary to pretty much everything else. I do 
_not_ want to have to repeat this in 18 months because I half arsed it. 
Additionally I'm expecting to have AC wifi gear capable of over 1Gbps 
before long, to pump multiple simultaneous 4K streams, run continuous 
backups and a whole lot more.

You're probably not looking for quite the same level of kit. If the new 
wifi unit is just to connect your workstation to your existing router 
(which quite possibly only runs at 300Mbps anyway, although I'd hope 
not) in the same room and you see it providing more than enough 
throughput for your needs in the foreseeable future then you know what? 
Maybe you genuinely just don't need to overthink this or spend excessive 
cash. Having a good muse over what you actually want/need from your gear 
before pulling the trigger on buying it is a really good idea to get 
everything straightened out in your head beforehand. Speaking personally 
I'm a but rubbish at this and tend to get really bogged down in the 
technical minutiae...

So don't worry too much about every single detail, just define what is 
you want first and _then_ go shopping for it afterwards (basically the 
opposite of what I usually do). Check your router first of all to see 
just what it's capabilities are and unless you want to rip that out and 
replace it as well or add an extra AP, that'll inform your decision more 
than anything else. Linux compatible USB wifi adapters fortunately 
aren't expensive so you can afford to future proof a little bit without 
breaking the bank though.

Security happens elsewhere in the stack so don't worry about that either 
(other than avoiding crappy manufacturers with bad reps for updating 
and/patching vulns - like TP-link for example).

Feel free to post your exact router model if you like so we can check 
it's capabilities.

Cheers

PS: that card would have worked out of the box for Windows users to be 
fair: bear that in mind when retailers blithely promise great support 
and driver compatibility - they don't mean for us dirty Linux users :|
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