Marius's Personal site

My personal blog & gallery
Welcome to Marius's Personal site Sign in | Join | Help
in Search

Blogging About .NET

Linksys WRT54GL

In case you don't know Linksys WRT54GL is the actual version of one of the most routers that kept the headlines a couple of years ago, since Linksys used some GPL code in their firmware and eventually they were forced to release firmware sources and as a consequence a myriad of open source projects started based on the bits published the firmware. This means that you are no longer forced to use whatever a manufacturer decide to release to public, and if you do not like some part you can customize it. Basically WRT54GL can run a linux distribution of course trimmed down to fit the small amount of memory available.

When I builded my wireless network I decided that this router is the best option, so I bought it. I paired it with another Linksys product a BECMU10 cable modem, a very nice thing of this setup is that the cases are builded to be stacked and they use very little space. Anyway, for 49,99 $ after mail-in rebate I do not think I can find a better wireless router at least now. The stock firmware is good but not the best so I started looking for alternate open-source projects. Well, as much as open-source fan I would I think that due the nature of the things (they are not making any money) the marketing is quite short, if at all. So, right now I could not find a comparative analysis between all major open-source firmware for WRT54 in order to decide which is best for me.

At this stage I oscilate between two different projects: DD-WRT and OpenWRT, and I will try to compare them. As far as I've seen in OpenWRT the WPA(2) support is not free so most likely I will go with DD-WRT, apparently this project has a lot of fans, and I should join it. Do you have other opinions?

Published Monday, July 10, 2006 9:40 PM by cchrism
Filed Under: ,

Comment Notification

If you would like to receive an email when updates are made to this post, please register here

Subscribe to this post's comments using RSS

Comments

 

mbm said:

The WPA/WPA2 is marked as "non-free" because the terms of redistribution are unclear, not because of any cost association. Essentially all it means is that after installing openwrt you need to run the command "ipkg install nas" to enable WPA/WPA2 support.
July 18, 2006 10:13 AM
 

Blogging About .NET said:

As I was saying quite some time ago I decided to upgrading my router firmware. Originally, I wanted to...
October 8, 2006 10:05 PM

What do you think?

(required) 
(optional)
(required) 

This Blog

Post Calendar

<July 2006>
SuMoTuWeThFrSa
2526272829301
2345678
9101112131415
16171819202122
23242526272829
303112345

News

Listed on BlogShares

Syndication

Powered by Community Server, by Telligent Systems