[Ma-linux] Flashing my router

[Chris Gordon]

On Sat, 2007-07-28 at 12:12 -0400, Theodore Ruegsegger wrote:
> I finally got a wireless router that works with 3rd party firmware and
> now I see that there's more than one project for such firmware. I'm
> having trouble deciding and hope some of you can give me some insight.
> 
> Details: my new router is a Buffalo WHR-HP-G54. I'm trying to choose
> between DD-WRT and OpenWRT; both support this model.
> 
> The website for DD-WRT looks more glamorous (not that that necessarily
> means quality or maturity, I'm just sayin') but it appears there are
> some concerns about its staying Free.
> 
> 1. Those of you that have used one or the other, please share what you
>    like about it and what you don't.
> 
> 2. Any who have tried both, doubly so!
> 
> 3. Is there another firmware project I don't know about?
> 
> I'd prefer not to embark on yet another thesis-level learning curve;
> ideally, I'd like to go through the docs, flash my router, configure
> it and then just use it, without a lot of hassle and study and
> confusion. On the other hand, I rarely get my preference, so I'll
> settle for some indication of just how big a job it's likely to be.
> 
> FWIW, the Buffalo router seems to work very nicely, with lots of nice
> features, right out of the box. But that's not why I bought it; I
> already have that. I want to see what all the fuss is about with
> features "typically available only in $600 routers" or even "routers
> costing thousands of dollars".
> 
> Any enlightenment on that? One feature that caught my eye is "client
> mode"; I believe this lets me use the device as a wireless NIC with an
> RJ45 back end, so my laptop just sees what looks like a wired
> connection. I'm so tired of going to hotels and jumping through hoops
> just to get connected. Of course, maybe this just means I'll be
> jumping those hoops in the router rather than in the laptop. Sigh.
> 
> Hoping for some advice and encouragement,
> Ted

I recently switched over to one of these devices from a regular PC with
multiple NICs.  I went with the Asus 500g premium and OpenWRT.  So far
I've been very happy with it.  The OpenWRT wiki has a lot of great
information, but it can be somewhat hard to find the right page.  I'm
happy to share my more detailed configuration steps if you're
interested.

As for a comparison between the two projects, my opinion is (note that I
never actually tried out DD-WRT, so I could be way off base) that DD-WRT
was targetted at the more general consumer that just wanted some extra
features not available from the original manufacturer's website.  From
what I saw, the primary method of managing DD-WRT was from the web
interface.  OpenWRT is by far more for someone familiar with unix/linux.
The default web interface is rather crude, and OpenWRT expects that you
will use the command line for most/all of you work.

Just my $0.02.

Chris