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#259963 - 07/07/2005 16:13 Alternative Linksys Firmware
oliver
addict

Registered: 02/04/2002
Posts: 691
Hi, I've been messing around with running a few of the alternative firmware for my linksys 54g router. First I tried to run the Satori branch, which failed miserably and wouldn't allow me to go online. My second try I went with the DD-WRT branch, which seems to run pretty nicely. I've got his rFlow Collector running, and i love it. The main reason why I started doing all this, is we have 3 or 4 various airports at my house, my dad just keeps getting more extreme airports or the express. So I wanted to hook everything up with WDS to have one nasty coverage area. This all was pretty simple to setup, and I even got the WDS working over ethernet to my linksys, however when I'm walking around my house and it switches APs I get any open downloads dropped and my RDP connection closes. Is there any way around this? When I'm pinging something it usually doesn't loose any pings when it hops to a new AP, but other open connections close.

Is anyone also messing around with this?
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Oliver mk1 30gb: 129 | mk2a 30gb: 040104126

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#259964 - 08/07/2005 00:49 Re: Alternative Linksys Firmware [Re: oliver]
genixia
Carpal Tunnel

Registered: 08/02/2002
Posts: 3411
I'm just about to install dd-wrt on my 54g. Or maybe an alchemy derivative. Not sure yet.
_________________________
Mk2a 60GB Blue. Serial 030102962 sig.mp3: File Format not Valid.

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#259965 - 08/07/2005 00:52 Re: Alternative Linksys Firmware [Re: oliver]
tonyc
carpal tunnel

Registered: 27/06/1999
Posts: 7058
Loc: Pittsburgh, PA
I'm still on Alchemy-pre7a. I haven't looked into what DD-WRT adds or why I should upgrade lately, but my Alchemy version has worked well for me. Haven't noticed anything like dropping connections or anything, been using it with 3 WDS nodes for quite a while now.
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- Tony C
my empeg stuff

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#259966 - 08/07/2005 14:21 Re: Alternative Linksys Firmware [Re: oliver]
SuperQ
addict

Registered: 13/06/2000
Posts: 429
Loc: Berlin, DE
A friend of mine was going on about how nice OpenWRT was.
_________________________
80gig red mk2 -- 080000125
(No, I don't actually hate Alan Cox)

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#259967 - 08/07/2005 22:42 Re: Alternative Linksys Firmware [Re: oliver]
Foz
member

Registered: 24/10/2000
Posts: 106
Loc: San Jose, CA
I just picked up a WRT54G. What's a good alternative firmware that includes good QoS support for VOIP (I'm using SunRocket) and has a caching nameserver?

Reason I ask is because my old solution was a 2wire gateway from SBC DSL, and it would automatically cache it's local DHCP addresses and serve them up via a local caching name server. That's really the only thing I miss about my old (SLOW) dsl setup, heh.

-- Gary F.
_________________________
Eeyore, Original Owner -- Mk II 80 Gb, Blue S/N #090000803 Tigger, 2nd Owner -- Mk IIa, 80 Gb, Blue S/N #40103789

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#259968 - 09/07/2005 00:21 Re: Alternative Linksys Firmware [Re: Foz]
g_attrill
old hand

Registered: 14/04/2002
Posts: 1172
Loc: Hants, UK
Quote:
I just picked up a WRT54G. What's a good alternative firmware that includes good QoS support for VOIP (I'm using SunRocket) and has a caching nameserver?


I've been reading about the WRT54G (after not realling taking an interest before) and am going to get one and try OpenWRT with SIPatH which looks like a rather neat SIP server/proxy. I haven't read into QoS but I think there are various packages you can choose from (wondershaper, frottle), as is DNS.

Gareth

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#259969 - 09/07/2005 01:29 Re: Alternative Linksys Firmware [Re: g_attrill]
tman
carpal tunnel

Registered: 24/12/2001
Posts: 5528
If you're buying now then get a WRT54GS. It's slightly more expensive but has more flash than the other models/revisions. It has generally better specs than any of the WRT54G's. Firmware should be the same for all of them.

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#259970 - 09/07/2005 04:08 Re: Alternative Linksys Firmware [Re: tman]
gbeer
carpal tunnel

Registered: 17/12/2000
Posts: 2665
Loc: Manteca, California
There is one model/version you want to stay away from. It has a buggy ethernet chip. It reliably, after X number of megabytes, goes strange and drops wireless connections.

At first they thought it was the driver. An updated driver was released. Them that are smart, figured out that what it did was overclock the cpu. As far as I can tell it didn't help. If you dig around in the Sevasoft forum there is much better info.

BTW: My GS is in the bin with all the other electronic bits I can't stand to toss, but should. It was replaced with a D-link part.
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Glenn

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#259971 - 09/07/2005 13:08 Re: Alternative Linksys Firmware [Re: tman]
Foz
member

Registered: 24/10/2000
Posts: 106
Loc: San Jose, CA
Already bought, and got the G.

-- Gary F.
_________________________
Eeyore, Original Owner -- Mk II 80 Gb, Blue S/N #090000803 Tigger, 2nd Owner -- Mk IIa, 80 Gb, Blue S/N #40103789

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#259972 - 09/07/2005 13:24 Re: Alternative Linksys Firmware [Re: Foz]
tman
carpal tunnel

Registered: 24/12/2001
Posts: 5528
What revision is it? The newer ones run faster, have more RAM and flash than the old ones. You lose the miniPCI slot however since it become integrated.

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#259973 - 09/07/2005 18:54 Re: Alternative Linksys Firmware [Re: tman]
matthew_k
pooh-bah

Registered: 12/02/2002
Posts: 2298
Loc: Berkeley, California
Quote:
What revision is it? The newer ones run faster, have more RAM and flash than the old ones. You lose the miniPCI slot however since it become integrated.

It's interesting that they've upgraded it but kept the same product name. Probably because it's the only home router with a large following.

I wonder how many of the wrt54g sales are motivated by geeks. For years people have been saying the companies should use open source for things like this because people could tinker with it themselves, but the wrt54g is the first mass market product where it's really been a big factor. I always bought netgear until the alternative firmwares for the wrt54g came out, but now there isn't a question in my mind to what router I specify for a home router install.

Matthew

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#259974 - 09/07/2005 19:31 Re: Alternative Linksys Firmware [Re: matthew_k]
drakino
carpal tunnel

Registered: 08/06/1999
Posts: 7868
Quote:
It's interesting that they've upgraded it but kept the same product name.
Linkssy frequently does this for some unknown reason. I have very painful memories of trying to help friends who went the cheep route on an ethernet card (back when most machines didn't have them integrated), and having to deal with Model X of the card with 10 variants, all with different drivers not compatible with each other. The best part was one of the NIC models would bluescreen Windows 2000 if you loaded the right model but wrong revision driver,

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#259975 - 09/07/2005 22:45 Re: Alternative Linksys Firmware [Re: tman]
gbeer
carpal tunnel

Registered: 17/12/2000
Posts: 2665
Loc: Manteca, California
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Glenn

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#259976 - 11/07/2005 01:32 Re: Alternative Linksys Firmware [Re: genixia]
oliver
addict

Registered: 02/04/2002
Posts: 691
I had some serious problems with the alchemy and satori versions, like almost a completely dead router. It would never come online correctly, or if it did the DHCP service was really buggy.

DD-WRT seems to run excellent, besides the connection hiccups when I'm roaming between various APs in my house. I wish I could figure out what it was, maybe it's just my old 54g, I think I might just purchase a GS and see if that fixes my problem, if it doesn't it's another access point I can use to expand my hotspot
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Oliver mk1 30gb: 129 | mk2a 30gb: 040104126

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#259977 - 12/07/2005 22:55 Re: Alternative Linksys Firmware [Re: gbeer]
Foz
member

Registered: 24/10/2000
Posts: 106
Loc: San Jose, CA
It's revision 2.2

I'm checking out the various firmwares now, thanks for the links!

-- Foz
_________________________
Eeyore, Original Owner -- Mk II 80 Gb, Blue S/N #090000803 Tigger, 2nd Owner -- Mk IIa, 80 Gb, Blue S/N #40103789

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#259978 - 14/07/2005 14:25 Re: Alternative Linksys Firmware [Re: Foz]
Foz
member

Registered: 24/10/2000
Posts: 106
Loc: San Jose, CA
Ok, just for completeness I thought I'd post what I went with.

I decided to try the latest DD-WRT firmware (which seems to be based upon a fork of the sveasoft stuff but I could be mistaken). It pretty much does everything I want it to do (DNS masq, QoS, etc). The port forwarding interface is clunkier than I'm used to, and at one point I had to manually clear out some forwarding instructions out of the nvram when the interface got out of sync with it, but it does seem to be working via uPnP and manually.

It also includes the xlink kai daemon (a free implementation of Xbox live) and I'll be testing it out soon. I haven't fiddled with the QoS much yet, but I'll be spending some time this weekend tweaking it with my SunRocket VOIP gizmo (yeah, they really call it a "gizmo") to see how well it works. Knowing the twiddler in me I'll probably wait until I have it working perfectly, then I'll wipe it and rebuild it with something else though

-- Foz
_________________________
Eeyore, Original Owner -- Mk II 80 Gb, Blue S/N #090000803 Tigger, 2nd Owner -- Mk IIa, 80 Gb, Blue S/N #40103789

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