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Open Source Router To Replace WRT54GL?

Posted by timothy on from the need-a-beamer dept.

jeremyz writes "With the inclusion of 802.11n in more and more Wi-Fi devices, the WRT54GL is losing its usefulness, even though it's still the de-facto standard for open source, Linux-running wireless routers. I've been looking around for a 802.11n router to replace the WRT54GL, but haven't really found anything besides the Netgear's WNR3500L. At first look, the WNR3500L looked great, but after some further investigation, I found that Netgear hasn't released all of the source, as they should have to comply with the GPL. Are there any good 802.11n routers to replace my aging WRT54GL?"

5 of 344 comments (clear)

  1. I built my own... by corychristison · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I was in the same situation... WRT45GL just wasn't cutting it anymore.

    So I bought a small ITX board that supports PCI-E, at least 1GB of RAM, a dual-interface PCI-E network card, a case that could house it and a good gigabit switch. I currently run pfSense 1.2.3 off a 1GB USB flash drive.

    I deal only with wired clients in my network so this doesn't address the Wifi portion of the question.

    I'm not listing any hardware because it changes all too often.

    This is the expensive route to go but I felt it was worth it for my needs.

    More than likely you won't need the PCI-E dual-interface network card and an onboard dual-nic ITX board would suffice. I just happened to have mine from a previous project.

    I built mine before the Intel Atom craze hit the streets. I don't know if they are powerful enough from experience although I'm sure you'd be fine.

    As always with hardware and networking, YMMV.

  2. Re:Here you go by TeamSPAM · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Also from the news on the dd-wrt site. It looks like Buffalo will be shipping some of their high performance routers with the dd-wrt firmware.

    --
    Brought to you by Team SPAM! where we believe: "Information in the noise!"
  3. RouterStation Pro by mulaz · · Score: 5, Interesting

    RouterStation Pro has everything:

    -gigE
    -mini pci slot for wifi cards
    -enough ram for pretty much anything

    (some assembly required :))

    I do not work for them, and am not payed by them, just a happy user

    --
    i read your email
  4. Why replace the whole router just to get 802.11n? by InakaBoyJoe · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Keep your WRT54G, and just upgrade the wireless to 802.11n. I did it with an AirPort Express connected to one of the ethernet ports in bridge mode. In the real world, 802.11n rarely saturates the 100baseT ethernet, so you get almost all the speed, without having to reconfigure everything from scratch. As a bonus, you can still host a separate 802.11b/g network on the old router to support legacy devices without jamming up your N network.

  5. Re:NO gig-e low # ports and pci bus for most of th by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'm also from Portugal.

    Although you are technically correct, if you are referring to ZON's service, I should say that I highly doubt they'll deliver the 1Gbps they claim (given all my previous experiences with this ISP).

    Also, given the arbitrary download limits they have, I'm not so sure a 1Gbps pipe from ZON is a good idea (i.e. in the contractual fine print, they say you have unlimited data transfers up to "reasonable levels of consumption" but NOWHERE does it specify an actual objective limit; if you do transfer data above what they consider "reasonable", they _will_ phone you and attempt to harass you, as I've seen being done before, NEVER actually telling you what the "reasonability threshold" really is).

    Caveat emptor.