Linux Format forums

[mugstar]

Was wondering if anyone has any experience of homeplug devices or recommendations for particular hardware? The last topic on the subject was over two years ago ,,,

[towy71]

I have a friend who uses them, he just plugs the computer in and it works
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still looking for that door into summer

[RedWillow]

I've got the 85Mbps versions of the Devolo Homeplugs. As towy71 says, you just plug 'em in and they work. I have no experience of the other makes, but I'm happy with the Devolos.

And if you're super-paranoid, you can flash the Devolo ones with a passphrase which encrypts the data stream. The nice thing about the Devolos is that they come with a Linux terminal utility for setting the passwords and checking the data speeds. You have to compile the utility yourself, but you just have to support a company that actually bothers to provide Linux configuration software.

Edit: and if you lose the CD, you can download the software from their site. How about that?

[mugstar]

I'm looking at these ... mainly 'cos I am super-paranoid and they have the best encryption as well as being a good price. Any thoughts?

[ollie]

You only have to look at the specifications for the alarm bells to start ringing:

[roseway]

Ollie is spot on there. I have a Philips set which has the same restriction. The only way to use them in encrypted form is to have Windows running. Devolo is the way to go, in my opinion.
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Eric

[nelz]

I don't know about the others, but the Devolo ones only need special software to set the encryption keys. Once the units are set to use the same keys, no software is needed. I use Devolo AV200 units to connect the MythTV frontend in my living room and they work well. I don't need or use encryption for this but I have tried the software and it works as advertised.
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Unix is user-friendly. It's just very selective about who it's friends are.

[Astley]

Hello all,

These PLT devices are filthy things, in radio spectrum terms - see
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/UKQRM/
for more details.

Regards Ant

[Birdman]

I am thinking of getting one of these. I have a few questions:

1) My cable connection into the house, and therefore where my router is placed, is in the house extension that has its own fuse box (both circuits come from one mains feed entering the house). Will the signal pass around the rest of the house from the extension?

2) If I have one plug 'out' from the router and two in other parts of the house could the plugs in the house be used simultaneously or for each connection in the house will I need a matching plug connected to an individual port on the router?

Thanks.

[nelz]

1) I have a similar setup and it didn't work too well. I was able to run an ethernet cable through ther wall to connect to a homeplug unit on the main house circuit, which gave better performance.

2) Homeplug is multicast, not point-to-point, so you can have any number of units transferring data simultaneously, but the overall bandwidth is shared between the connections.
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Unix is user-friendly. It's just very selective about who it's friends are.

[Birdman]

Thanks Nelz. This is well worth a go then. I had thought of your solution but was hoping that I wouldn't need it

[Birdman]

My Devolo pack arrived today. I am delighted to say, that even with my dodgy wiring set-up and using a gang surge protector, it works I have not had a chance to run any extensive tests but I can run videos from youtube without any glitches, so it looks promising.

[nelz]

I found iperf to be useful for testing performance of my Homeplug setup.
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Unix is user-friendly. It's just very selective about who it's friends are.