Mac Mini with wireless bridge?

[blodwyn]

My son has a Mac Mini without airport, and has just moved to a new apartment where the cable/modem connection is a room away from where his mini is. Running an ethernet cable would be an ugly task so wireless seems the way to go....

It seems like retro-fitting an airport card to a mini is not such an easy process Link, so his options seems to be either a USB wireless adapter (least favorite option) or a wireless bridge like the WET11 from Linksys.

Has anyone used any of the wireless bridges from DLink or Linksys, and how trouble free have they been?

He will also need a wireless router and a Vonage phone adapter, which you can get in one unit (Linksys) - anyone have any experiences of these suckers?

Thanks

 

[LeeTom]

I can't speak from experience on any of those wireless bridges, but I know that they would work.
Also, you might check The Mac Store or the Tigard Apple Store about the Airport card. They might put it in for you at the store for buying one.

Lee Tom

 

[blodwyn]

Also, you might check The Mac Store or the Tigard Apple Store about the Airport card. They might put it in for you at the store for buying one.

Lee Tom

Good point, there's no harm in asking - he did get the Mini from the Tigard store.

Thanks

 

[Daedalus]

I've used a Linksys WET11 bridge for a couple of years, and it's always worked very well. It spent the first year or so hooked up to a linux pc on the far side of the house, and the last year or so hooked up to a ReplayTV unit in the bedroom. I haven't had even a single problem with it. Performance is what you'd expect from 802.11b.

I barely even remember what it looks like. Out of sight-Out of mind. It always works, so it's easy to forget it's even there...

 

[Hemingray]

I have that exact setup at my mom's house: a Mac mini with a D-Link wireless bridge. Works great. I've had to reset it on a couple of occasions over the past year, but I was never sure if it was due to the bridge, router, or modem. Whenver it acted up, I'd just restart all three and it'd be fine.

Definitely do the wireless via ethernet, not USB. USB ports are enough of a luxury as it is, plus if you get the cheaper USB 1.x adapters, you'll have a huge bandwidth bottleneck.

 

[blodwyn]

Thanks for the replies. At this point I think I'm looking at the WRT54GP2 (integrated Router/WAP/Vonage ATA) with a WET11. The wireless will only be used for internet connection so I think 802.11b WET11 will work fine for that.

It will be a week or so for Comcast to get the cable connection up and running, but when I've got the whole setup working I'll post back with the details

 

[ChrisFromCanada]

EDIT: Nevermind there are no drivers for it.