> 1. Does anyone have any horror stories about using Apple Communications > for ADSL? I think they are reselling Telstra Bigpond ADSL so horror stories >about them are welcome too.
www.whirlpool.net.au is probably a better place to ask. I think it is a fairly general consensus that Telstra ADSL pretty much sucks, and so this affects all of their resellers. But getting a good reseller is probably the key -- even if it is a Telstra fault you still have to go through your reseller to get it fixed, and if their service is not up to scratch, good luck. My complaint with my ADSL provider (Netspace) is before the TIO currently so I won't comment any more. > 2. Should I be buying an ADSL router or an ADSL modem and then using my >Linux box as a router? I'm currently using the second option with Telstra >cable and would prefer to keep it. Well I find the linux router box to be a noisy (fan/hd noise) solution, but it will certainly still work. If you don't want to outlay more money and this works, then you should probably just stick with this. > 3. Would anyone like to recommend an ADSL modem/router? Both buy and keep >away recommendations are welcome. I was considering the Dynalink ALH-110 but >the archives seem to indicate this one has problems. If anyone has this >working with RedHat 7.2 then please let me know as I can get one cheaply. I use a dlink 504 adsl modem/router all-in-one (well I would if my connection actually worked). this is one of the ones that does both PPPoE *and* PPPoA (some will not do ATM, which could be a downside if you move to a provider who only provides this later). bad things I have found with it is that the web interface is a bit buggy, in that it seems to hang and you need to reset it to get back in (and there is no power switch so you have to pull the plug ... arrgghhh!). also it has no easily accessible "status" page, where you can get the IP address of the external interface for sending to your DDNS provider. so you end up writing a script to log in and get the info from the "protected" page (not too hard) but then it keeps hanging after doing this a few times so it's almost useless. maybe this will be fixed in the future though. the other thing i've found is that the way it does DNS forwarding doesn't work with anything but windows for some reason. I also found this with the d-link di804 firewall product. it gives out it's self as the DNS server via DHCP, and then forward the requests or something. You can't change this this option. I don't use the DHCP functions so it doesn't bother me much, but if you did you can manually configure your nameservers on non-windows pc's. it does have the usual features like port forwarding, DMZ's, and a good firewall (the di804 includes some easier to use auto firewall rules, e.g. click this box to allow ICQ, click this box to allow BattleNet, etc, but the 504 doesn't, you have to do it manually). as for price, it's not too expensive if you factor in the cost of a four port switch to the price of an ethernet adsl modem. -i ********************************************************************** CAUTION: This message may contain confidential information intended only for the use of the addressee named above. If you are not the intended recipient of this message, any use or disclosure of this message is prohibited. If you received this message in error please notify Mail Administrators immediately. You must obtain all necessary intellectual property clearances before doing anything other than displaying this message on your monitor. There is no intellectual property licence. Any views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender and may not necessarily reflect the views of Woolworths Ltd. ********************************************************************** -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group - http://slug.org.au/ More Info: http://lists.slug.org.au/listinfo/slug
