I'm using this with a Linksys PC card in my laptop and have had few problems. VERY easy to install and works GREAT.

VERY IMPORTANT NOTE - be sure and read the FAQ online for specific ISPs before installing this product! It is not included in any of the documentation. Also download the latest firmware before installing.

If you do those things then you should have no problems. You should be online in less than an hour.

I chose the Lucient Orinoco Gold wireless NIC because it was highly rated in numerous reviews that I read and it has drivers for more operating systems than other cards. It was easy to install and works great. It also gets a 5 star rating from me.

The Print Server is a plain old LPR daemon. So any machine with a LPR capability (NT/W2K/UNIX) should be able to print to it without any software install. Which is good because the Print Server software that SMC provides completely screws up parts of the the printing configuration on my XP machine. Not in a harmful way, though. Just creates these gibberous ports that don't do anything. Needless to say, the PRTMate port does not work in XP.

Anyway, you need to configure the TCP/IP port as standard LPR with the queue name "lp". On NT/W2K/XP, you also need to turn on "byte count" or your pages get cut off.

In the end, it works great and I'm glad the printing wasn't some proprietary setup. No longer does my computer need to be on for my wife to print.

It does get hot on the bottom, but putting on the feet helped.

Other than that, for the price, this wireless router really can't be beat.

I received Barricade just yesterday, and was able to set it up quite easily. The router communicates flawlessly with a "Linksys WPC11 Instant Wireless Network PC Card" and an Apple's iBook AirPort card. (The bottom of Barricade heats up quickly, so before you experiment, remember to set the unit on a hard surface where it can "breathe" -- included rubber stickies raise the unit a bit and help to give the unit some grip too) The Linksys wireless card utility program shows 75-85% signal strength in ~15 feet at 11Mb speed through a wall -- I think that's acceptabe and is all I really need. The 128-bit key security (WEP) feature worked between Barricade and Linksys card, but it appears that AirPort card does not support that authentication mechanism (I need to research some more) so I disabled WEP for now... Which reminds me, the firmware update from www.smc.com adds MAC-address level access control, so I configured the Barricade to communicate to only my two wireless cards (so my neighbors can't hop onto my network) Also, yesterday I was unable to use a printer via the Barricade's built-in print server. Overall Barricade is a great value.

Highly Recommended

In two weeks of use I have only had to reset the router once and I am not even sure that this was the routers fault. It may have been my DSL modems fault. One day after I bought the unit I had a hardware failure on the D-Link wireless LAN card. In the process of troubleshooting the problem I called SMC support number. The number is toll free and the help was quick, no waiting on hold. The tech support person was courteous, knowledgeable and didn't seem in a rush to get me off the phone. I was very impressed. This was a far cry from the support I have gotten from D-Link and Linksys. Both of these companies make decent hardware but support is not there strong point and Linksys has virtually no documentation or online support.

I have upgraded the firmware once and it was trouble free. The web based control panel is comprehensive and easy to use. If anything the control panel is even more useful and flexible then the comparable Linksys router. The unit itself is small and attractive. The only negative I have is that the lights on the front of the router are not clearly viewable except when looked at head on.

The range on this unit is great. I live in a townhouse that has 1200 square feet upstairs and 1200 square feet downstairs. The router is in the northwest corner of the downstairs and I use the wireless units most commonly in the southeast corner of the upstairs. The transfer rate is a consistent 11 mbs even when I step outside.

Over all an excellent router. I have run it with both the Linksys and D-Link cards and both work fine. The D-Link card comes with better monitoring software but the Linksys card seems to give me greater range and consistency. A definite buy recommendation on my part.

I do wish they had Mac setup instructions, as with the Mac there are really only two steps required to get TCP/IP going -- select DHCP in the Mac TCP/IP control panel (if that's what you want), and enter the Host name in the router's setup (if, like me, you have a cable modem that requires it). (The router defaults to dynamic IP, which simply means it expects a broadband connection that supplies all the config #'s.)

All done. Typing this review wirelessly from an iBook :) I updated the firmware easily -- get the .bin file from http://www.smc.com/smc/pages_html/support.html and click "update firmware" in the router's web screen.

Haven't tested throughtput, range, or WEP yet, but after MUCH hassling with the Linksys this is manna from heaven. I should've listened to the warnings....

This happens very quickly once I start using the laser printer I have connected to this SMC router/print server.

It's very frustrating. I should have kept my Linksys router & Linksys print server combination of products - there were no problems. I could have added the wireless network router to my existing setup.

The Barricade was easy to set up - plug in the cables and the power, and go. My machines acquired DHCP licenses without any fooling around, and I was connected to the internet in no time. The web interface is simple and wasn't a problem for either netscape or mozilla to handle.

I can't say I'm all too impressed with the firewall capabilities it has, but then, with a wireless network, you'll be wanting to secure every machine individually anyways, won't you? My main disappointment was that it does not provide port mapping abilities beyond saying this port, this machine - you can't specify port x goes to machine m, port y.

I haven't attempted to use the print server capacities of the Barricade - I suspect they would be troublesome from linux... (wants you to do some windows program to set up the drivers...)

Overall I'm quite happy with it, and recommend it for use with linux.