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Meshlinux
... is a small GNU-Linux distribution for wireless
routers in mesh-networks (hence the name), preferably using old PC's.
Important: There is a bug in the installer of the current version. Check out the bugs-section
before installing.
Meshlinux allows you to set up a operating-system for a wireless-router
very quick and it contains more drivers for network-cards than any
other GNULinux-Distribution that I'm aware of. So no patching and
re-compiling your kernel every day. Some drivers are
still experimental so don't write flames to me ;-) Bug-reports are very
welcome. Primary target is a system for community-mesh-networks. If you
want to learn more about meshes you may check the links-section.
The system is free for download, free to use, modify and distribute
according to the GNU-GPL if not stated different in the licences by the
authors of the sourcecode-packages that were used for building the
system. You will find more details in the installed system in the
directory /usr/doc. No guarantee of any kind beside that the system
will start the next thermonuclear war and I will laugh at you if you
are still able to complain about that. No more words about
legalese.
First I wanted to offer a quick way for newbees in the Berlin wireless
community to get their systems running Linux with all the drivers they
asked for. We were testing the mobilemesh routing-protocoll at that
time and there were no implementations for other operatingsystems like
Window§ or FreeBSD. Since then we switched to a protocoll called
Optimized-Link-State-Routing. I'm going to include more and more
dynamic routing protocolls. Shure, if it is not dynamic I wouldn't call
it routing protocoll ;-) So some classics like BGP, OSPF, RIP, AODV are
included, too.
Currently we are thinking in the community about building the best
dynamic-routing-protocoll ever ;-) Let's see...
Suggested Hardware
Three years ago we have spend about 900 US-$ for one peer-to-peer
link
between two houses although we were building the antennas on our own.
We paid a lot of money for expensive RF-Cables (Aircom Plus),
Lucent-to-N-Type-Pigtails, N-Connectors, ISA-to-PCMCIA-Bridges and
Orinoco-Gold-PCMCIA-Cards. Today everybody can build the same link
spending not more than 70 US-$ if you get free PC's. (A Pentium I with
16 MByte RAM and any small IDE-Harddrive will do.)
If you wanna do mesh-networking and the old gear you get donated has
USB, get a USB-Cable (up to 5 meters long) and a USB-WLAN-Card
listed in Supported
Hardware. The USB-cable won't add any high-frequency loss. The
cable shouldn't cost much more than, say two US-$. I pay 1 US-$
(85 european cent) for the cable. Mount the PC under the roof and
assemble the
WLAN-Device on the rooftop. A broomstick or the like could be the pole
and a microwave-proof plastic-box that comes with your favorite salad
can protect the device against rain. The box shouldn't be
absolutely airtight, otherwise the box will collect humidity. If you
live in a hot area a additional roof beyond the box should keep
away direct sunlight, otherwise the device could die by
overheating. Of course lightning-protection is an issue
if you live in an exposed area. I don't know of any
lightning protection for USB-Cables yet. Well, you can mount the PC on
the roof and protect the cable leading to the grid and the
ethernet-cable if you use ethernet-connection to the router. You
don't have to do that if you connect to the router only by WLAN, which
is the best lightning-protection
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