Possible to use old Computer as a wireless router?

Kotu · 12 Feb 2010 at 11:15

At the moment im using a netgear DG834PN which im getting tired of having to reboot to fix lan issues. Ive had similar issues with linksys routers in the past and when looking into buying a new router I find paying £100+ for a decent one a gamble too far (considering the DG834PN cost me £80 and turned out to be rubbish).

So it got me thinking, ive got an old 2GHz shuttle kicking around, can I use this as a router instead? From what I understand I can use something like smoothwall for the actual routing, but am I able to install a wireless N network card in it and use that as a wireless access point? and if so, how effective would it be compared to a wireless router?

Thanks for any advice.

Sp00n · 12 Feb 2010 at 11:41

Just did a quick google and came up with ZoneCD: http://www.publicip.net/

Never done it myself but I'm sure its possible with some sort of linux distro.

Rainmaker · 12 Feb 2010 at 11:46

This is something I've been looking into myself; and yes, it's definitely possible. There are ready-made Linux and BSD distros out there that cater for this market, or you can install a 'normal' distro and configure it yourself.

Google has tons of guides, from Ubuntu and Debian through to CentOS and Fedora. You basically need to set up your hardware, put the wireless card/dongle into master mode, then install bridging, DHCP and so on. It's not that hard.

Have a look at ClearOS (the new name for ClarkConnect). Although it has wifi drivers built in, it doesn't currently support wifi (as a router/AP) yet. Nice distro for everything else though.

Your little 2GHz shuttle should make a tasty little router/hardware firewall if you take a little time to read around. Please do update this thread as I'd be very interested to see how you get along.

Rainmaker · 12 Feb 2010 at 11:54

Here is another site that might be of interest. It's not about setting up a wifi AP/router per se, but has tons of easy to follow "how to" guides for Linux networking. It includes DHCP, LAN, wifi, Apache, FTP etc. It should make things a bit easier if you get stuck along the way.

EDIT: Just seen that DD-WRT have an x86 build. The free version is wired only, but the full version (supporting wifi) is only 20 euros. Worth a look if you get stuck on the self-built Linux route. An Atom with 512MB RAM would do very nicely for just about everything you'd ever need, though is overkill for 'generic' daily-grind type router stuff. Either play around with your own build on an old machine, or install DD-WRT free and see how you like it before splashing the cash. Have fun; I know I will.

EDIT 2: Ubuntu have a Router How-To page, and it's wifi-capable.