Over the 12+ years that I’ve been on the Internet, I’ve used a number of different devices to provide routing between my home computer networks and the Internet: from 486 PCs to Cisco routers to Linksys wireless routers. For the last year or so, I’ve elected to keep things simple and have just been using a WRT54G. I’ve had a few of them in the past as well, and the current version I have (v6.0) has different firmware than the previous versions, which doesn’t make it easy to get “third-party” firmware running on it.
A number of folks that I talked to, as well as some of the students in my Linux Security class have been talking lately about DD-WRT. DD-WRT is third-party firmware (Linux, of course) that runs on a number of these “home routers”. The DD-WRT Wiki mentions that the Buffalo WHR-G125 is “the cheapest 100% compatible wireless router“, so a couple of days ago I picked one up at Best Buy for $50.
I brought it home, started a download of their firmware designed specifically for the WHR-G125, and unboxed it. In short, I had DD-WRT running on it in just about 10 minutes. It has now replaced the WRT54G as my home router.
One cool thing is that DD-WRT supports WDS. I’m considering getting another one to put on the roof (or as high as I can get it) and seeing if I can pick up the signal from work (we just deployed a new wireless network there within the last two months). I’m only about 0.4 miles away (the way the bird flies) so it’s possible, but the amount of vegetation in the way might be an issue. I’d also probably need to locate an external antenna on the front side of the building (which faces this way) to get the best reception. If I could do that, I’d have a permanent link to work, which has a much faster link to the Internet than my 10/1 Mbit/s cable modem provides. =)
November 14th, 2007 at 5:39 pm
hmm and it was no issue to get it installed?
November 14th, 2007 at 6:04 pm
@she:
Nope, it was extremely easy, but keep in mind I’ve done this before too. There are step by step directions on the DD-WRT web site that will walk you through getting it installed. I’d guess that even if it were your first time doing this, you could still learn the process, get DD-WRT installed, and have it up and running in an hour’s time.
December 7th, 2007 at 9:56 pm
K Thanks :)