Wireless routers for Macs (two elementary questions)

A couple of quick, lame questions:

1) Are Linksys wireless routers Mac-compatible? I seem to see conflicting
statements on the Web.

2) Whether the list includes Linksys or not, what are the most
popular/trusted/effective brands of wireless routers and adapters which are
compatible with both a PC and an iMac? Based on what I've seen, it looks
like Netgear and Belkin may lead the field? Yes? No? I have an iMac and a
newly acquired PC, and need to get them both hooked into my equally new DSL.

Thanks....

On Sat, 10 Jul 2004 08:24:37 GMT, "gbbg" <G-(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>1) Are Linksys wireless routers Mac-compatible? I seem to see conflicting
>statements on the Web.

Maybe we should ask if your Mac is Linksys compatible? Yeah, it will
probably work. The only problem I've seen with Mac's and Linksys
routers (BEFSR41) was getting the router to deliver an IP address via
DHCP to an older Mac running System 8.x. No problem with 9.x or OS/X
10.x. I have customers running both PC's and Mac's using all manner
of random routers.

>2) Whether the list includes Linksys or not, what are the most
>popular/trusted/effective brands of wireless routers and adapters which are
>compatible with both a PC and an iMac? Based on what I've seen, it looks
>like Netgear and Belkin may lead the field? Yes? No? I have an iMac and a
>newly acquired PC, and need to get them both hooked into my equally new DSL.

Most popular probably equates to the largest advertising budget. That
would be Microsoft.

Most trusted seems to be the manufacturer that has made the fewest
mistakes, with the fewest security holes. Methinks Cisco would
qualify.

Most effective probably means most cost effective. I would give that
to Linksys, Netgear, and DLink, all of which are roughly equal.

Hint: TCP/IP is TCP/IP. There's no such thing as Mac TCP/IP or PC
TCP/IP. It's all one big compatible interoperable standard. What
Apple and MS builds on top of TCP/IP creates compatibility issues, but
the basic TCP/IP function, as found in the off the shelf router, are
universally compatible between any computah that claims to grok
TCP/IP.


--
Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 AE6KS 831-336-2558

gbbg <G-(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> 1) Are Linksys wireless routers Mac-compatible? I seem to see conflicting
> statements on the Web.

There are no special problems using an AirPort-equipped Mac with a
Linksys access point: it's all 802.11 standard. The two sources of
"compatibility" problems are: (1) Linksys doesn't officially support
Macs and won't give you Mac-related technical assistance; and (2)
configuration or firmware updating of some Linksys products can't be
done correctly from a Mac browser.


> 2) Whether the list includes Linksys or not, what are the most
> popular/trusted/effective brands of wireless routers and adapters which are
> compatible with both a PC and an iMac? Based on what I've seen, it looks
> like Netgear and Belkin may lead the field? Yes? No? I have an iMac and a
> newly acquired PC, and need to get them both hooked into my equally new DSL.

For best Mac compatibility and support, your choices are (in roughly
descending order) Apple, Buffalo, Asanté, Belkin, D-Link, and Netgear.
IMHO, the Buffalo products currently give Mac users the best bang for
the buck: they are Broadcom-based, like Apple's, and work with Mac
passphrases -- no hexadecimal required. They can also do WDS with the
Apple Extreme Base Station.


For a good introduction to using Wi-Fi with a Mac, look at Glenn
Fleishman's new Take Control ebook:
<http://www.tidbits.com/takecontrol/AirPort.html>. For the latest news,
also check out Glenn's AirPort Weblog:
<http://wireless-starter-kit.com/airportblog/>.

On Sat, 10 Jul 2004 18:17:22 GMT, (E-Mail Removed) (Neill
Massello) wrote:

>(2)
>configuration or firmware updating of some Linksys products can't be
>done correctly from a Mac browser.

True. However, most of the Linksys products are firmware upgradeable
via TFTP, which is commonly available for the Mac. See:
http://www.mactechnologies.com/pages...t.html#linksys
for Mac upgrade instructions.


--
# Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D Santa Cruz CA 95060
# 831.336.2558 voice http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
# (E-Mail Removed)
# 831.421.6491 digital_pager (E-Mail Removed) AE6KS