Linksys WRT54GL and Tomato firmware
(Sunday, April 29. 2007)
Last week I replaced my PC router (133MHz, 32MB RAM, 0,9 GB HD) with a Linksys WRT54GL hardware router. The old Slackware box had done a great job for several years now but the time had come to exchange the old machine with a new one. The router's hard disk had a lot of bad blocks the last weeks wherefore I believed that the hard disk's end was near. So I had the choice between using another PC or buying a hardware router.. I decided to purchase a hardware box because I need all my computers for other tasks and this time I wanted to have a soundless router (the old PC was very quiet but not soundless) which does not need a lot of power.
My router's uptime:
As mentioned above I bought a Linksys WRT54GL because of his great price-performance ratio and the fact that it's possible to replace the router's firmware by a custom one. First I wanted to install the famous OpenWrt (a Linux distribution for embedded devices) but then I came across the Tomato Firmware which was created for Linksys' WRT54G/GL/GS, Buffalo WHR-G54S/WHR-HP-G54 and other Broadcom-based routers. The "installation" of Tomato was really easy - you just have to pick the right image and upload it through the router's web interface. ~1 minute later the firmware is flashed and the router reboots.
Tomato Firmware | polarcloud.com
The firmware enhances the router by a lot of new, great features like the (real-time) bandwith monitor:
This feature is import for me because my provider is not able to provide a traffic monitor/counter. :/
Visit polarcloud.com to find further information about the Tomato firmware.
Here is a list with other opensource firmwares:
root@router:/home/morpheus# uptime
04:33:30 up 243 days, 6:34, 2 users, load average: 0.06, 0.01, 0.00
As mentioned above I bought a Linksys WRT54GL because of his great price-performance ratio and the fact that it's possible to replace the router's firmware by a custom one. First I wanted to install the famous OpenWrt (a Linux distribution for embedded devices) but then I came across the Tomato Firmware which was created for Linksys' WRT54G/GL/GS, Buffalo WHR-G54S/WHR-HP-G54 and other Broadcom-based routers. The "installation" of Tomato was really easy - you just have to pick the right image and upload it through the router's web interface. ~1 minute later the firmware is flashed and the router reboots.
Tomato is a small, lean and simple replacement firmware for Linksys' WRT54G/GL/GS, Buffalo WHR-G54S/WHR-HP-G54 and other Broadcom-based routers. It features a new easy to use GUI, a new bandwidth usage monitor, more advanced QOS and access restrictions, enables new wireless features such as WDS and wireless client modes, raises the limits on maximum connections for P2P, allows you to run your custom scripts or telnet/ssh in and do all sorts of things like re-program the SES/AOSS button, adds wireless site survey to see your wifi neighbors, and more.
Tomato Firmware | polarcloud.com
The firmware enhances the router by a lot of new, great features like the (real-time) bandwith monitor:
This feature is import for me because my provider is not able to provide a traffic monitor/counter. :/
Visit polarcloud.com to find further information about the Tomato firmware.
Here is a list with other opensource firmwares:
- DD-WRT
- FreeWRT
- HyperWRT (official)
- HyperWRT Thibor
- OpenWRT
- Tomato
- X-Wrt
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I flashed my Buffalo router to Tomato a few months ago and it has been rock solid. I didnt have much need to do it but felt the urge to improve and tinker with it. I also like the graphs ans charts you get, as well as the ability to adjust traffic if I ever need to.