I'm moving to a new apartment this weekend, and due to the limited space availible (no internet connection near the PC, cables would have to pass major walkways) I'm thinking about going wireless.

I already have a Linksys 802.11b wireless network PC card for my laptop, but I have several desktops that I would have to buy new cards for, plus the possibility that those cards might not work with Linux.

Here's what I want to do:

Cable modem->firewall box (IPCop 1.3)->wireless access point->wireless access point->bridge->(all other PCs)

Is this doable with the hardware out there? I got mixed messages from the droids at the computer stores, none of whom seemed to know diddly about the equipment they were selling. (no big surprise there...) My guess is that it should work just fine, but I'm not about to plunk down that much change for something that may end up not working.

Thanks,
Thane

I went lookin' at the manuals, and here's the deal:

WAPs can operate in two modes - bridge, and access point. Bridge mode WAPs can only communicate with other bridges - which means I'd need 3 to do it right.

Bah.

Y'see, I don't want to share my internet connection out with the entire neighborhood - and as we're all aware, the current protocols for wireless security are pretty much a joke. What I was going to do was to run a two-way firewall, and only allow VPN'ed traffic through in both directions. Anything that couldn't connect to the VPN would find itself in a dead-end situation, a network to (literally) nowhere.

Comcast is run by a bunch of arrogant pricks that like to shut off broadband for any reason they can think of. I don't want to give them excuses, especially due to a lack of alternatives in our location.