Making a Choice

I had been researching wireless LAN solutions for some time, and one of the first home/small office solutions I came across was the Lucent Orinoco RG-1000. I found a few other similar products, such as those from D-Link, LinkSys, and 3Com. After reading reviews by consumers from several different sites, I ended up choosing the RG-1000, even though some of the reviews of it I'd read were less than favorable, and some of the other solutions were cheaper. The reason I chose the RG-1000 in the end was that Lucent has been in the wireless LAN market longer (in fact the Apple Air Port product uses Lucent hardware), and even more importantly for me, it is the only such product I'm aware of that supports the Linux operating system, which I use. It even ships with Linux drivers on the CD.

Getting it all Set Up

I actually purchased the "kit" version of the product, which included 1 Orincoco Silver PCMCIA card. The kit includes everything you need for a home LAN including a standard RJ-11 phone cable. If you plan on using the RG-1000 with a DSL or cable modem, you'll need your own ethernet cable, since the kit doesn't include one.

My home LAN consists of a Linux firewall/DHCP server, my wife's Windoze PC, and my dual-boot laptop I use for work. My DSL ethernet connects to the Linux server. A D-Link 6 port hub then connects to the second NIC on the server. All of the other machines connect to the hub. My plan for the RG-1000 was to simply plug it into the hub, and have it grab an IP address from my DHCP server, and pass it along to my laptop using the wireless PCMCIA card. Was it as easy as I thought it would be? No. It was easier.

I was expecting at least 1 thing to go wrong during setup, since I'd read so many reviews claiming the documentation was terrible, the software looked like a "My first Java Program", and the drivers were painfully difficult to install. Surprisingly enough though, I found none of these to be the case. It may be that Lucent has updated it's software and documentation since those reviews were written. Who knows? All I know is, the documentation was very clear and accurate, and explained things in a simple enough way for a non-techie to understand. The drivers installed without any trouble at all. And the Java-based setup software was, in my opinion, great looking and as easy to use as could be.

The Path to Wirelessness

Here are the steps I followed in setting the RG up:
1. Plug the power cable and an ethernet cable (from my hub) into the back of the RG. (write down the 6-digit "Network Name" found on the back of the unit, you'll need it during setup).
2. Install the Client Manager and RG Setup Tool software from the included CD on my laptop.
3. Power down my laptop, plug in the wireless PCMCIA NIC card included in the kit. Power the laptop back up.
4. Install the driver for the wireless PCMCIA NIC card.
5. Run the RG Setup Tool program. In my case, I disabled the DHCP and NAT services since I didn't need them.
6. Request an IP address for the laptop (on a Windows machine, type "ipconfig /renew" at the DOS prompt).

And that was it. I was up and running at 11mbps between my laptop and the RG. It is awesome. I can go anywhere in my 1700 sqft house, and still get the full speed connection. I have even tried it from the furthest end of the backyard, and retained connection at 5.5 mbps. I have not experienced loss of connection from anywhere.

One nice feature of the included software is a Radio Connection meter that resides in the Windows tray. It shows a visual meter of the connection, and gives a rating such as Excellent, Good, Marginal, etc. That way, you can know which areas of your home get the best reception. To get a more detailed analysis, there is a Link Test you can run to view the detailed connection statistics.

In Conclusion

Overall, I am extremely pleased with the performance of the RG, and would highly recommend it to anyone considering purchasing one.



Recommended: Yes