Linux ac wireless access point?

[lagokc]

I recently changed from an 802.11n router to a really fast gigabit router that doesn't have wireless. I'd like to add 802.11ac to my home network but don't want to shell out $160 for a 802.11ac bridge. I do have a computer running Linux Mint set up as a NAS at the moment, is it possible to add an 802.11ac adapter to it and set it up as an access point? I don't want it to do NAT.

From what I've read, certain adapters have Linux drivers that support setting them up as an access point and some don't. Is there a USB3.0 ac adapter that supports this? At the moment my NAS's sole PCIe slot is taken up with a USB3 adapter.

 

[Fardringle]

There aren't any actual AC adapters yet since there isn't an official 802.11ac specification, so if you really want to do this I'd wait until you can get a real AC adapter and then you'll be more likely to get one with mature drivers that are capable of doing what you want to do.

 

[lagokc]

I was under the impression the people responsible for making devices learned from the 802.11n debacle enough that the 802.11ac hardware is pretty close to the finished version? I suppose I could do it with 802.11n, the bottleneck was really the 100mbps connection my old router had.

 

[Fardringle]

What the manufacturers learned from the Draft N devices is that a LOT of people will buy stuff simply because it's new, even if there's no guarantee that it will continue to work with official equipment. Easy profits are easy profits, so why not do it again with 802.11ac?

 

[lagokc]

So long as the two wireless NICs I buy now work in ac together and worst case scenario any guest devices can always drop back to n speed I'm not really seeing the issue.

 

[VirtualLarry]

The USB (draft-)AC devices aren't even full AC speed. Unsure about PCI-E (draft-)AC cards. Best bet is to get two (draft-)AC routers and set them up for bridging.