[Linux] Linksys WRT54GL and OpenWRT

[Aaron Wolfe]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: linux-admin@flux.org [mailto:linux-admin@flux.org] On
> Behalf Of Chris 'Chipper' Chiapusio
> Sent: Sunday, July 13, 2008 12:53 AM
> To: linux@flux.org
> Subject: Re: [Linux] Linksys WRT54GL and OpenWRT
>
> On Sat, Jul 12, 2008 at 08:25:09PM -0600, Steven Benmosh wrote:
> >
> >   So my questions are:
> >
> >   1. Is OpenWRT the best software to use, or is there
> something else/better
> >   for that purpose?
> >
> >   2. How likely am I to obliterate my router by
> misconfiguring or using
> >   OpenWRT, either permanently or temporarily?
> >
> >   3. If/when I install OpenWRT, would it be ready to go as
> a router (without
> >   throttling or anything advanced), or would it have to be
> configured
> >   correctly before I can access the net from my home?
> >
> >   Any advice from people with exprience would be appreciated.
> >
> >   Z.
> >
> I've used Sveasoft, and then DD-Wrt (and still do on my v6
> for VAPs), but the best firmware for a border gateway is
> Tomato.  The QoS really works, its really easy to understand,
> and built in real-time and historical graphing make it an
> excellent choice.  The only thing I miss is snmpd, but its a
> small price to pay for real working QoS.
>
> http://www.polarcloud.com/tomato
>
> Follow the directions to a 'T'.  Remember in school how they
> told you to read all the instructions before starting to
> solve a problem. Do that.
>
> As for usability 'out of the box', you may have to configure
> your upstream connection if you are not a provided a DHCP
> address.  You wil also want to enable your prefered flavor of
> encryption for the Wifi, but other than that all the basic
> stuff is set up and waiting for you to tweak it.
>
> Chip
>

I would agree.  Having used both openwrt and tomato, I've found that tomato=
 is much easier to manage because it has a very nice web interface.  OpenWR=
T can do anything that tomato can do, but you'll spend quite a bit more tim=
e mucking around to make it happen.  Of course, if you like doing things "t=
he hard way", OpenWRT is very nice and quite powerful.

HTH
-Aaron