Damn, what a waste of an afternoon and now, evening.

The story starts with the desire for a Logitech MX900 Bluetooth mouse to use with my new Apple notebook. I go to a local store which has the product listed on its site and generally carries a huge stock in store. Apparently they don't carry the MX900 except through the website. So I drive to another store down the road from there (since I'm already out). They too had it listed on their site (and they don't do mailorder). Out of stock - though it doesn't seem they even had the shelf space for it. Call another place and they don't have it in stock.

At the first store I did buy a couple of things. I bought a small portable flash media reader and a USB 2.0 HD enclosure for 2.5" drives. On my way home I decided to pass by a large chain store because it was along the way - jjust to see if they carried the MX900. They didn't.

But they had a nice USR 802.11g router (model 8054) which would come out to CAD$50 affter tax. I wanted a new one anyway, if only for an improvement to the management UI of my older 11b model. The range on the new one was also supposed to be better.

First the USB enclosure.... Worked well plugged into my desktop PC. Fast. plugged it into my Mac notebook and it didn't work. Check each USB port. I was semi-upset but thought I might get it working with its double USB connnection (for more power) - but I needed an extension to do that whichi I didn't have on me - my two USB ports are on either side of the notebook.

The thing that got me REALLY upset was trying out m right-side USB port afterwards.... It was now dead. Dead dead. A little sniffing brought me a faint, but identifiable "burnt" smell. ARRRGH. I verified the Firewire port next to it was still working. This means I'll have to drop this brannd new computer off for repair.

Now on to configuring the new router... The new interface looked very nice. I thought to myself that it was a fine improvement with some very nice added features. Until I started to use it. Every time a single setting is made, like adding a MAC address for a client machine, you have to hit an APPLY button. This resets the router and forces you to manually hit a "back" button to reload the config page. VERY frustrating when there are a few things you have to change/add, each requiring an APPLY.

First thing I noticed was that for access control the only choices I had were to globally allow or disallow my entire MAC laddress list. This was already alarming because the old router allowed more versatility by keeping wired and wireless settings separate, allowing more than on/off setting for each, and then also allowing you to apply those rules on a per-MAC client basis. This was no good. I could not set this up to block all wireless clients except the ones I add, but let all wired clients through. Bad.

One nice thing was now being able to name the clients - this way one can actually identify what machine each MAC address belongs to. But then there was another HUGE missing feature. You can't assign any fixed IPs! WTF!? That just won't do.

So regardless of how good the bits inside this product (USR 8054) are, the software completely stinks and was oobviously put together by a monkey. I'd say it was all just a marketing decision, but you really have to see how bad the help files are and how scattered some of the setup options seem to be.

Now... I need recommendations for a good wireless router. Must have:

802.11b/g
at least 3 ethernet ports (not including the WAN connnection)
support for direct connection to Cable/DSL modems (obviously )
good wireless range and through-put
well thought out management interface with:
MAC-level access control with ability to treat wireless and wired clients independently
Ability to give each client a descriptive name
Ability to assign a fixed internal IP address to any client (id'd by MAC addr)
Custom Port forwarding for TCP and UDP, with defaults already in place for common ports
External IP filtering (inbound and outbound)

I'd like to avoid going over US$100 (final price) if possible.

So, I didn't get the primary thing I wanted, the mouse. but I managed to damage my new $2000 notebook and waste my entire evening with this POS USR router. Now I have to waste more time returning both the router and that USB enclosure. Gonna stick to firewire for the Mac, so I'll make sure I get a nice unit with dual connections this time.

Thanks.
Bruno

Wow, that is a bad purchase day... I bought a Hauppauge video capture card that I'll be returning, but I managed not to damage anything else in the process (knock on wood.)

Quote:
Now... I need recommendations for a good wireless router. Must have:

I'm pretty sure the Linksys WRT54G or WRT54GS will do everything you're looking for, provided you're willing to run with 3rd-party firmware from Sveasoft. The only things I don't think it has are "defaults in place for common ports" with the port forwarding, and I'm not sure what you mean by "descriptive name for each client." It does have everything else you mention, including 4 ports, great wireless range, DHCP with static IP assignments, MAC filtering for wireless clients, and a whole slew of other stuff, including direct shell access to iptables so you can set up your own rules.

I'm running said firmware on my two Linksys routers and it's been great. Last I looked, WRT54G(S) routers can be had for $70 or less, too. Getting access to the "bleeding edge" Sveasoft releases requires a $20/year subscription, but the features I mentioned above are all available in public builds.

The "descriptive naming" thing was something I thought should be available when creating MAC lists on these types of products because I was finding myself wiith a bucket-load of MAC addresses and not remembering which belonged to which computer. Today i was surprised to see it implemented in the USR. It's basically just a text field where you can give each machine an alphanumeric name (whose only purpose is for identification in the router's config menus - lets you tell what machine the MAC actually belongs to).

I did some research and came up with the Linksys as well. I also found sveasoft. I think I'll get the WFT54G and think about the custom firmware once I verify what the stock has to offer. I did look through the sveasoft feature list and faq though. Very complete. Though I would like the ability to assign a static IP *within* the dynamic range (the firmware doesn't check and might assign a conflicting number).

And Tom, thanks for the heads up! Makes me a bit more relieved for the rest of the weekend. Now i just have to find out where the best place is to get this part. I'd like to do it "officially" - because I'm sure I could always find one of those boards at work and put it in myself.

Bruno

Get an Airport Express to bridge, and get a strictly ethernet router.

Thw WRT54g is probably fine, but scares me for some reason...

I ordered the WRT54G from TigerDirect. CAD$89 but I've also found a rebate for CAD$15 that I'll print out and send in.

I definitely concur that sveasoft.com is terribly laid out. I first found it via a link from a forum. That took me to a docs page that had a top to bottom description of the entire interface. After going to the main site I was unable to ever find a link pointing back to that doc page. I also could never find a link back to the firmware FAQ.

There are forums on the site that are open and some that are subscription-based. There's no indication of which is which until you click on them. There's some release info in one of the first forums. Seems to me that the pre versions last for some time. There was a lot of discussion in the past it seems about their licence and GPL, etc... Too confusing late at night.

Tony, is it worth paying the $20 for the year for access to the forum and pre releases? I don't have any desire to follow threads from day to day nor involve myself in the ins and outs of the linux & firmware mods they're working on. I just want to set it up and forget about it until the time comes when I need a new feature they may have added to an update. Then another flash and forget.

Also, does anyone have any real-world measurements/evaluation of the range performance after increasing power to the transceiver?

Bruno

a) I paid my $20. I don't know where to download the releases from their site. I simply can't find it.

b) I noticed a decent increase in signal strength when I boosted the signal on mine. I get the feeling that results may vary, though.

Sveasoft joined the wall of shame a few weeks back when they got into Slashdot's bad books. Basically their subscription scheme appears to fall foul of the GPL.

Apparently it doesn't. They've asked the FSF and they've said:

Quote:
I see no problems with this model. If the software is licensed under the GPL, and you distribute the source code with the binaries (as opposed to making an offer for source code), you are under no obligation to supply future releases to anyone.

Please be clear that the subscription is for the support and distribution and not for a license.

Peter Brown
GPL Compliance Manager
Free Software Foundation

You have to be logged in before you can download any of the prerelease builds. Click on the Downloads link at the top in the forums and then Prereleases.

the problem lies when they say that people who have the subscription can't re-distribute the binary/source to others.

If you read the quote I pasted it says "you are under no obligation to supply future releases to anyone". Hopefully the FSF does have some sort of idea about the GPL...

You're allowed to distribute the source and binaries if you wish but you lose the ability to get new prereleases when they're released. I never said this was a particularly fair thing or not but it does seem to follow the GPL.

yeah, never disputed the fact that they follow the GPL. just violates the spirit of free software, which is the real cause the FSF should be looking out for. I can't believe that there were no "buts" to that reply they issued.

someone should just pay the 20$ and fork the project onto sourceforge. in fact, why shouldn't i be the one? DiGNAN, can i borrow your source? =)

There is a forked project on sourceforge. Don't know at what point it was forked however.

this site has downloads for the Sveasoft firmware, v4.0 no pre-releases however. Although a good site for hacks on linksys wireless gear..

from sveasoft:

Quote:
All new packages developed by Sveasoft will be under the Sveasoft
license (which is the Apache license plus the additional restriction
that it cannot be re-licensed under the GPL). The new Sveasoft license
is compatible with the
Open Source Definition found at
www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php .

Sveasoft will continue to release all source code for GPL packages as
required by the GPL.

Sveasoft will also continue to publicly release all source code for
stable public releases.

This change recognises that a Linux distribution (which is
what the Sveasoft firmware distribution is) is an aggregation of a
kernel plus multiple executables running under that kernel. Those
executables can be licensed in many different ways (e.g. GPL, BSD,
Apache, Perl Artistic).

The Sveasoft license allows both commercial and non-commerical use of the Sveasoft public distribution and those aggregated parts created by Sveasoft under either a closed or open source development process.

wow, i must say, redefining itself as a distro is really clever. got me to thinking that its justified (though still unfair). seems like the redhat model with it's subscription packs. anyway, i have alchemy v5.3 if anyone needs it. who would've thunk that i need to pirate a distro.

Figures this wasn't over yet... I had no problems returning the two bad purchases... But yesterday I discovered that the 40GB drive I used to test that USB enclosure was also killed. Completely dead. Not even the faintest of sounds when connecting it to its normal Firewire enclosure.

But the worst news... I had been using the PowerBook without incident since this happened. Including this afternoon at work where I first paired it to a new Logitech MX900 Bluetooth mouse. Tonight when I got home I had to pair the mouse again because I had replaced the batteries and might have reset the connect button. While fiddling with the Bluetooth settings in Mac OS X the machine hung (actually it hung while searching for the mouse while I was busy flipping a pork tenderloin on the BBQ).

...So I had to press the power button to shut it down. Starting it back up and.... it won't boot. Can't find the bootable partition. Boot with the install/recovery disk and there's no HD to be found. Not an unrecognised partition, nothing. Simply no HD detected to even try a repair or diagnostic on. Clearing NVRAM/settings with keyboard shortcut and OpenFirmware didn't change this. Can't hear any sound from the HD when powering up machine.

Fun fun fun. Since I had to go to a service center anyway, I guess it's better it happened now and not next week. shite. Even though I can easily re-install the stuff on the HD if I lose it, I did put a bit of original work on there. Glad I haven't cleared my camera's flash card though (that would have been about 200MB of images lost which would have been the icing on the cake).

This is not my week.
Bruno

Oh man, sorry to hear that. I hope you have better luck with the router. Have you gotten it yet?

Yup, got it yesterday. I was starting up the powervbook to configure the router when the HD went tits up.

Bruno

Argh. The Linksys definitely has cool options when fitted with the SVEASOFT firmware (I'm using the Satori release), but the "Auto" MTU setting always switched back to Manual for some reason...

And it's definitely impacting my through-put when compared to my USR8011. When I'm running an application or two that make use of some small amount of bandwidth over a few forwarded ports, I can barely use a browser in the background. Usually the domain names won't even validate. This isn't a Windows firewall problem as some people have suggested either. Because this will impact my other machines going through the router as well (not running SP2 for instance).

I'm talking about both wired and wireless connections above. Using DSL with PPPoE. I'd like to get this issue resolved before having my new Cable modem service set up. First step will be updating to the new 5.x sveasoft firmware version. Then I guess I'll start hitting BroadbandReports.com to search for tweaking tips.

Can anyone offer any advice on some router settings I can try? Right now I've got the MTU at 1450. I did some small test at different packed sizes and found that larger frames wouldn't go through.

Bruno

Set the MTU to 1500 and you should be fine.

I'll try 1500, but I thought that might be too high for my DSL connection. Worth a shot though. I'll do that before appying the latest sveasoft firmware. I hope to get my PowerBook back today as well, because I really want to do some range tests with the variable power setting in the firmware.

Bruno

http://www.ecamnetwork.com/wrt54g/gmail_commented.html

wow, Sveasoft using DMCA notices to get "pirated" firmware binaries off mirror sites. Thats a low, especially since the code is GPLed.

The last update was on the 15th... It was an entertaining read, where's the rest?

Anyway, for now I seem to have remedied my comms problems by updating to the latest firmare and then making adjustments to the XP TCP settings using DrTCP. Hopefully I'll have even faster perfomanec than I previously had, as I didn't make these edits when my ISP first bumped my connection speeds earlier this year.

Now I seem to have good download and upload throughput as well as decent ping times (and not timing out on DNS requests, etc.) Next step is to get my PowerBook back from the shop (2 weeks is all it took to find having a oprtable indespensible). Then to do some wireless range testing around the house (to compare against what I had with the old B router).

Tony, the Max MTU size is 1492 btw (8 byte overhead for a packet I believe puts it to 1500 essentially).

Bruno

Excellent. I hope the WRT54G works out for you. You're definitely doing more with the firmware than I am (just a signal boost)