Musenki's Linux-Based AP Ships To Beta Customers

An Anonymous Coward writes: "Austin, TX based Musenki ('musenki' means 'small wireless gadget' in Japanese) is poised to ship beta units of its first product -- the M-1 wireless access point that uses Linux. Pretty cool device that has open architecture and can be modified to accomodate growing 802.11 standards. Says they could have not have done it without open source community."

Can it be?

Can it be? Is this company really attributing some of its success to the open source community? While this is not like a company like Intel or HP saying they couldn't have done something without the help of the open source community, it is definitely a step in the right direction. Once we get the proper recognition, we will be on our way to attaining mainstream popularity.

Oh my lord!

A company that openly admits they needed the open source community.. wow! Makes me smirk now to look at companies like LINDOWS, which are smothering and flaming the community-- hiding the source and ignoring them. Even slapping them in the face. Thanks, Musenki. You are a role model company.

Spelt wrong in title

Spelt Musenski in title, rather than Musenki (I thought fo a arf a mo an old bud named Musenski (or was it Musinski, Bull Moose anyway) was in the biz.

Curious

Does anyone know if they've included any extra security packages?

Seeing how WEP is basically an open door, I see no reason not to have ipchains installed and operational by default.

The software is there. Anyone know if they are using it? If not, it seems a bit a complete open door to these guys [netstumbler.com]...

gotta love file... save...

so if someone tells me where I can host it quickly and easily then everyone will be able to see it after it gets /.'ed

Boo

The M-1? Well, they certainly aren't planning on creative naming schemes!

A test of support

I dont know about you, but I think I am going to try to get my hands on one of there, (ie, but one).

I am going to watch this closely becuase I think here we have a real test to see what happens when linux has a product that people can buy and cant simply download.

If they do well, I think we should use them as a example of how things really are going to go for linux.

Thanks for reading

Cool!!!

Wireless access, attributed to the nerds. I would like to know more of the details about the final product, but this is neat. It would be really nice if I could use this with a mac......But Linux is good enough. I would like to know what they embedded. The kernal? or other stuff too?

Languages

('musenki' means 'small wireless gadget' in Japanese)

Excellent example of why the Japanese language kicks ass - they have a single word that means small wireless gadget. If only english was that cool...

Price seems high...

The features seem good, but...
"Quantity one pricing for the M-1 (including 802.11b NIC, antenna, power supply, etc) will be $300, and the M-3 (similarly configured) will be $500, with quantity discounts available.
Beta units of the M-1 will go out on Monday, April 15th. Beta shipments of the M-3 are planned by the beginning of May. General availability of both should be by the end of June."
$300 or $500. And people complain Apple Airport Base Stations are overpriced at $300 MSRP, $270 or less (for quantity one pricing). The Musenski seems to be very cool, but with Linksys 802.11b access points at, what, $170 being touted as reasons to not but Airports, I can only hope they aren't priced higher than the market will bear.

Re:Price seems high...

Good access points cost a lot. Sure, you can get a Linksys for $150, but a Cisco AP is still $500. They have features a "plain" AP doesn't have. In the case of Cisco, better security and good key management.

"Small wireless device" ?

Musenki [rut.org] means wireless device.

mu = not
sen = wire
ki = device

I don't see 'small' in there..

Palo Alto Freenet

This Linux AP technology is allowing communities to finally build out their own wireless communications systems without the help of Ma' Bell or Cable.

Keep building these solutions!

Palo Alto Freenet [geocities.com]

Soekris

Musenski must have better PR people, but don't forget about Soekris [soekris.com]. They make network computers that include two slots for radios and one slot for hardware encryption, running *BSD or Linux.

M-1.

I've been playing Medal of Honor: Allied Assault too much.
When I first saw M-1, I immediately thought of the M-1 Garand.
I suppose they both could be called wireless communication devices. :p

Support is going to be a challenge

They reasoned that there would soon be a significant opportunity to supply devices to public access "hot-spot" providers, wireless ISP/infrastructure providers (WISPs), and various value added resellers (VARs).

I love that they've done this on a shoestring, but the demands of deploying and supporting an end-user-device-cum-platform can crush a company. At a minimum, they'll need to issue patches in a form that can be installed without comprimising uptime, and VARs will demand "development kits" which are workable, documented, and supported.

Both of these are crucial. If even a few devices are hacked, you can kiss commercial adoption goodbye. If development requires too much time, the VARs will look for other platforms -- they tend to be small outfits without much time for puzzling out the source code. (I used to build development kits for well-funded OEMs, and even they rode us mercilessly for better documentation, support, and frequent updates.)

I hope they find a stable funding source and the best people they can. This is a worthy idea that deserves to work.

Musenki

Actually, "musenki" means just "wireless device". I suppose you can assume it was small if you want to.

busybox + uClibc rule

Cool. This device uses Busybox [busybox.net] and uClibc [uclibc.org]. These are very very cool projects for developing embedded systems. Of course I'm biased (busybox and uClibc maintainer hat on), but I had no idea these folks were building an AP with them. Looks pretty nice. I hope they send me a free one. ;-)

Another one is here (

A little larger (maybe) but still nice and small, with 3 Ethernet, CompactFlash, SSD, 486/100MHz based and more:

Soekris [soekris.com]

But: Why are these devices all so limited ? Honestly, I want all my Networking done in one box (Gateway,Firewall,Printserv,external Modem (FaxServ), wireless access-point, ethernet and HomePNA, no additional hubs/switches...I am at home, you know ?!

I know...

No PCMCIA/Cardbus? PCI is Odd for wireless

Just about all the wireless devices I've seen are really made for PC Card, aka PCMCIA and/or Cardbus, and if there's a PCI version, it's an adapter to plug their PCMCIA card in. At least one 802.11a manufacturer I talked to said that they weren't planning to do PCI and didn't think the other major players were either - if you want it, get a PCI-to-Cardbus adapter. So it's odd that a box made for the wireless gateway-frob market is using mini-PCI and the bigger one has PCI.

No source?

It's in beta, so that means that they don't have to release the source, right?

Kevin

No shit

Says they could have not have done it without open source community.

As it runs on Linux, I can imagine it could have been quite hard without the open source community... ;)

MiniPCI card

Does anyone know the source of the minipci card or the antennas they are using? I'd sure love to cram one of these cards into my soekris net4501 box :)

Re:Since linux devices gets /.'ed rather easily-

Damn, Rob, even *you* have turned to karma-whoring? This is too much to witness...

Re:By the way...

I choose not to view linux stories because as a software developer, i see open source as a threat to my well being. They are giving away for free what I am supposed to be getting paid to write, its a scary business model from my perspective.

Re:ah, but did they give back?

The article says they contributed a driver for the 8245 chipset.