If anyone has any ideas or experience with something like this I would
appreciate any input.  I tried ninjam today but somehow client refuses
to talk to alsa drivers, I will be investigating that in hope that it
will perform better than ices2+pd.

Thanks.

Five musicians plus a server, in high fidelity, realtime, moving around. That's a lot of data, and you need it minimum latency and minimum loss. What kind of wireless router are you using, and what kind of wireless do the laptops have? I would start with top-of-the-line Belkin (inexpensive but very high quality right now) wireless-N laptop adapters (prefer to not do USB, that's latency and reliability and often quality) and router. I would start with just one Belkin laptop adapter and make sure your Linux distro is compatible, and then get the rest. I would not rely on whatever the laptops have built in, I would match wireless hardware and use good stuff. Right now Belkin is doing shockingly good with their medium and high ends (they used to be not so), that and Buffalo are the two makes I recommend these days.

I would definitely look at your raw wireless technology first :-) Wireless can get tricky.

J.E.B.