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Netgear WNR3500L Open Source Router Announced
MyOpenRouter writes "Netgear has announced the WNR3500L, a brand new, open source, wireless-N gigabit router customizable with third party firmwares. MyOpenRouter is the dedicated source for Netgear open source routers, with the full scoop including a review with screenshots, how-to's, tutorials, firmware downloads, etc. Here's a review and the downloads page." The router can run popular open source firmware including DD-WRT, OpenWRT. and Tomato. It will list for $140.
What can I do with this that I can't do with a dozen other dd-wrt routers?
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with the popularity of DD-WRT and others, i'm surprised it took wifi companies this long to try to make money on it. linksys made the WRT-54GL a long time ago but didn't try to promote custom firmwares.
It would be better if they open sourced they N wifi adapters. Being able to fully utilize it with an open source OS would be nice.
My WRT54G is $100 less than runs custom DD-WRT just fine. If I had gigabit network cards and wireless N i might upgrade, but for a home network not doing much filesharing locally I don't see the point. I think they're just trying to capitalize on the face the code is open-source. And forcing people to pay a premium for it. The WRT310N is $70 new, has practically the same specs, and can be flashed. So what's the benefit?
If you're going to drop that much on a router, you're better off getting your own board and a custom radio. More configureable, better hardware. I'm using Ubiquity's routerstation right now with openwrt on it. Really a nice setup for essentially the same price. If you don't want to spend that much though, just get a WRT54GL and drop openwrt/ddwrt/tomato on it. You'll get essentially the same performance minus the wireless N support.
Yum USB, 64-megs RAM, 8 megs flash. Now if only their WiFi driver is OPEN SOURCE and working reliably in all modes. This is my complaint with most Broadcom and Atheros-based products right now, the WiFi driver blobs are a PITA.
The Linksys NSLU2 is $80, which is a lot cheaper than $130 for the WNR3500L. I have an NSLU2, running linux, as a music server, and it works great. Considering what crap hardware most home routers are, I'd hesitate to trust one as a file server. The Marvell $99 wall-wart computer also looks kind of interesting.
What would really be handy would be an $80 NAS box that ran, say, debian, with a complete set of useful apps, was easy to set up, and was officially supported. The NSLU2 comes pretty close to this, because Linksys explicitly says it's ok with them if you install linux on it -- but they don't actually support that, and it's really kind of a hassle to set up. It's also a hassle to get the apps you want. E.g., I would really like to be able to run a more recent version of the Unison file synchronizer on my NSLU2, but when I try to compile and run it, it crashes, so I'm stuck with a precompiled binary of an older version.
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That's interesting, because I've found that all the routers I've flashed with DD-WRT (at least half-a-dozen WRT54GL's, a WRT150N, WRT300N, and five WRT54G2's, and maybe one or two others I'm forgetting) saw increased stability and reliability after flashing compared to the stock firmware. Mind you, I didn't attempt to get Wireless-N working with either of the two N routers.
--- Mr. DOS
The NSLU2 is too slow - no gigabit, processor too slow, too little memory. I recently dumped my NSLU2 and went with an MSI Wind nettop - only $140 for the box and $25 for 2Gig of memory. Add $90 for a 1TB drive, and you completely blow away a NSLU2 in performance.
Ubuntu Server with webmin. Solid and quiet print server/NAS. Set it up and I haven't needed to look at it for months.
No, I don't trust in god. He'll have to pay up front, like everybody else.
A full blown mini mainboard with serial, parallel, video, audio and usb ports, much more RAM and processing power, compact flash, mini-pci and pci slots, etc. plus a powerful wifi mini-pci card. It's not N, for now, but who cares? The day you need N it will just be a matter of shelling out 20-40$ to get a new mini-pci card that supports it.
Call me when these open routers' prices drop to $25. Today everything above $50 is a complete ripoff.
Disclaimer: I'm not affiliated in any way with that shop. I just have been a very happy customer in the past when my company needed some embedded boards and after a good search on the net we ended up purchasing some of their their old WRAP systems to develop wireless stuff and firewalls.
So did the last 'open source' router I bought from Netgear - then I found out it could ONLY be configured with IE6. I think I'll hold off on buying any more 'open source' netgear equipment until I can confirm they aren't still confused about this 'open source' stuff.
Yes, but for $140 there are plenty of solutions with dual radios and USB but generally less RAM then this unit. Personally I'm waiting for the dual radio n device with USB which supports open firmware for ~$100. I figure it will be available by late November.
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If this Netgear is like other modern era Netgears, don't worry: it will be in full supply on all the refub channels in about six months, and for probably $29.
Netgear used to make great stuff. The WGR614 is nice and cheap and just plain works, aside from being B/G only and missing some modern stuff. Some of the more advanced Netgear stuff is great out of the box but there is a spectacular failure rate on the hardware after six months or so.
For example, check out the Netgear WNR854T reviews on Amazon or Newegg. Amazon: 169 reviews, 106 give it one star. Newgegg 232 reviews, 68% of them were one or two eggs.
Scary stuff. The local Frys store will happily sell you a refub'd one for very few bucks. It'll work for six months and then die.
After being a Netgear loyalist for years, I got the linux version of the WRT54GL and it at least works. Not a fan of Linksys though.
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