Help me understand the IPCop/Wireless concept

[shutslar]

I am very new to the networking world so please be gentle with me. I have the following infrastructure along with the listed requirements and questions. I have researched and read many documents and posts. I just don't think I properly understand. I hope that I am not too dense to get it. Any guidance is greatly appreciated.


Infrastructure

old 200mhz, 64mb ram, box running IPCop 1.4.10 with DansGuardian Add-on
Green Network with 3 computers
2 Ubuntu Linux boxes (500mhz, 256mb ram, 10/100 ethernet)
1 MS Windows box (1.8ghz, 512mb ram, 10/100 ethernet)
Red Network with 384kb wireless connection to ISP


Requirement
Add ability to wireless desktops and laptop in the house to connect to the internet. The Windows XP laptop has a built-in wireless. The desktop Windows XP machines have Linksys WMP54G wireless nics installed.

Questions

Can I just put a wireless nic in my IPCop box and configure it as a blue network?
IF yes, what kind of drivers do I need to get the IPCop box to recognize the wireless nic?
Will the IPCop now become the wireless access point that the other wireless nics should be configured to talk to?
Will I need a different wireless access point to get my wireless diesktops to connect to the IPCop box?
If IPCop does not become the access point, can I just configure the nics to do a peer-to-peer ("ad hoc"?) type network connection?
If yes, what are the advantages/disadvantages to these configurations (#3 and/or #5)?


I can't currently think of any more questions about this. Again, I don't know if I am just too dumb to understand or if I am just overwhelmed by the amount of information I have been attempting to absorb.

Any help and guidance is truely appreciated.
Best Regards,
Scott

[cybertron]

1. Probably, though I don't know IPCop myself. It should just show up as a network interface though so you can do anything you want with it (within reason:)).
2. Depends on the NIC. If it doesn't have native Linux drivers you will have to use ndiswrapper. Maybe find a wireless card that you like and then Google to see if it's supported under Linux. If not, try another.
3. Not as far as I can tell. The only option I'm seeing is an ad hoc setting for wireless cards (which answers #5). It may be possible, but I don't know how (actually, it is possible since some Linksys routers use Linux and run as access points, but again I don't know how they do that).
4. You shouldn't if connecting ad hoc is enough for you or you can figure out how to make it work as an access point.
5. See 3.
6. I think 3 would be the easiest to manage since you would probably have to set up ad hoc connections to each client, and I'm not even sure you can have more than one ad hoc connection per card. However, unless someone else knows how to do that or you can figure it out, it won't be possible.

[shutslar]

Thanks cybertron. after doing more research and sleeping on it a couple of days, I think I am just going to put an access point in place and be done with it.

Thanks for your input.
Scott

[Choozo]

I'm running SmoothWall and just added a 3Com wireless router as a access point on my green interface. Works like a charm.