New OpenWRT Drops Support For Linux 2.4, Low-Mem Devices

hypnosec writes with word that the OpenWRT team a few days ago released the final version of the project's newest iteration, version 12.09 (codenamed "Attitude Adjustment"). "The final version doesn't support Linux 2.4, because of which the distribution wouldn't run on old router models, for example the Linksys WRT54G models, which have 16MB of RAM and CPUs clocked at 200MHz. The distribution is now based on Linux 3.3 and there is good news for the Raspberry Pi fans as the distribution now supports the credit card-sized computer, along with Ramips routers."

Comments

Brilliant

[Holi]

So they drop support for the routers everyone has and want you to build your own router from a raspberry. Sounds like a plan for success.

Re:Brilliant

[morcego]

Pretty much par of course for them.
For years now OpenWRT is becoming more and more bloated, to a point it is hard to make it run smoothly in the standard base device (WRT54GL). I haven't been able to use the standard image for at least 3 years now, having to build my own removing as much bloat as I can...

Re:Brilliant

[ArcadeMan]

I sense a great disturbance in the fork.

Re:Brilliant

[Anonymous Coward]

Why upgrade? Seriously? Shit works. Shit is faster than my cable modem service? Why poison the planet with another piece of expendable?

Re:Brilliant

[silas_moeckel]

A R Pi has a single 10/100 Ethernet that's connected to USB 2.0. That does not seem like much of a router to me it might be useful for encryption bit it's can not handle current upper tier broadband speeds.

Re:Brilliant

[L4t3r4lu5]

A capable and cost-effective replacement for your aging A/B/G router.

Disclaimer: I own one. It works.

Re:Brilliant

[ArcadeMan]

My cable internet is only 2Mbps. I'm not upgrading because it's enough for me and going with 5Mbps or 10Mbps would double or triple my monthly fee.

No, there's no other options where I live, the company has a real monopoly.

Re:Brilliant

[fast turtle]

why in hell should I use an "N" router when everybody and their clan has one in my neighborhood? I've found that sticking with the "B" band works better, gives me a longer range and I don't suffer all the stinking interference that everyone using "N" does. Hell it's the same reason I switched back to a 900Mhz cordless phone. Better range and a lack of interference from all the other hardware crapping on the 5Ghz band (shit N routers).

Re:Brilliant

[Lothsahn]

Well, my WRT54G maxed out at 30Mb down/10Mb up. Given I have 62/15 service, I was severely bottlenecked by my router. Also, it doesn't have wireless N or 5Ghz, so my wireless transfer rates were capped at about 8-12Mbit. My new RT-N66U has far more range (at default power levels) than the WRT54G does, even at boosted power levels. I use my router for a VPN server, and the 200Mhz processor in the WRT54G was really struggling at that.

In general, I agree with you--I keep devices for a very long time to be environmentally friendly. I still use my WRT54G's as wireless bridges. But there is a reason to upgrade your router if you have tangible needs for the additional speed/range. Especially one from 2002.

Re:Brilliant

[tlhIngan]

I don't know, 11 year old routers might be pretty uncommon. Hell, I'd suggest that it'd be a good time to upgrade. My Netgear WNDR-3700 has 64MB of RAM and 8MB of flash, so this will work fine for me. I'll be upgrading from 10.03.1 so the lack of an ancient, obsolete kernel like Linux 2.4 means nothing to me.

Well, a bigger reason is that if you're on the faster internet service, ye olde WRT54GL is no longer fast enough. I think it's routing speed is fast for when it was released (50Mbps?) but it's no longer adequate in this age where a startling number are getting 25, 50, 100Mbps service (indeed, it's become the bottleneck). Even using it for 25Mbps might get iffy due to the low headroom available.

It was stupidly fast on release when few had 10Mbps service, but it seems the availability of faster service has rendered it out of date.

Especially with modern high end routers getting 750+Mbps speeds. Not fast enough for Google Fiber, but definitely enough with headroom for the top tier 250Mbps service available in some areas.

It's time for it to be retired. There are new generations of open routers available nowadays. Though, router power consumption is creeping upwards a bit - I'm sure you can build a PC that can do full wirespeed GigE routing and consumes under 50W, plus handle wifi and everything else and be pretty much fanless and quiet.

Re:Brilliant

[TheoMurpse]

WRT54G is, as you might assume from the "G" at the end, a G router. In the United States, G is faster than the connection to the house. An order of magnitude faster, actually.

Re:Brilliant

[Lothsahn]

The ASUS RT-N66U is rock solid stable using Toastman Tomato. I've been running it for 3 months with no crashes, lockups, dropped connections, or other problems. Unfortunately, it's $170, not under your $100 pricepoint. I got mine on sale with a free USB HD, so it was really like $120 at the time. It's also nearly impossible to brick.

I also have experience with the WNR3500Lv1, which has worked great for me (stable for years with no lockups). I see it's listed for $60 at Amazon, however, there is a new v2 hardware out which is VERY different from the v1, and software support is radically different. If you could get your hands on an old WNR3500Lv1, it'll work great. If you order a new one, you'll probably get a v2, which is NOT what you want. It's not dual-band, though.

The RT-N66U appears to be what most of the Tomato devs use, so that's what I would recommend. To me, it's worth the extra $$, as I plan on keeping it for many years and the 5Ghz gives me great speeds in my house (62Mbit reliable at pings only 2ms slower than wired).

Re:Brilliant

[knarf]

Running a WRT54G nowadays is like using an Intel Pentium III with 256MB of RAM and a 30GB hard drive. Networking equipment generally has a longer lifetime than general computing equipment, but the WRT54G just doesn't cut it anymore.

Funny that, I still use a few Thinkpad T23's, Pentium IIIm inside. I upped the RAM to 768MB a long time ago - it would be expensive to do that nowadays - but they do indeed contain 20GB and 30GB drives. They are very usable machines, running some form of Linux (one Debian, two Ubuntu).

It was not that long ago they connected to the 'net using a WRT54GL. The wrath of Thor was a bit to much for that router so it got replaced by an Asus RT-N16 which, again, was killed by lightning not that long after. I'm now on my second RT-N16...

In other words, don't discount 'old' computer equipment just because it is old. Don't throw around nonsensical terms like 'modern loads' either, it makes your post sound like marketing drivel. While this older equipment is not suitable for playing more recent games, it still works fine for many other tasks.

Re:Brilliant

[bill_mcgonigle]

Gigabit ethernet is a really good thing if you have a file server in your LAN

yeah, but if you count up the 90th percentile, people use wireless AP's to connect their laptops to their cable or DSL connection to reach servers where the total link speed is less than real-world 802.11g performance. And Backfire will work just fine for that. Internet connection speeds aren't much different than they were in 2002 for most people; a 200MHz MIPS is plenty to handle 7Mbps.

I have a wndr3700v2 running Attitude Adjustment with wpad and luci-ssl installed, but that's me.

There is at least one exception: I was trying to help my folks get out from behind their double-NAT situation on FiOS and realized that the TV gets routed through IP, so the packet processing speed of their 54g will be insufficient, so I needed to turn back on that one. BTW, what a massive pain FiOS is to use your own router.

Re:Brilliant

[Hadlock]

I bought one last year. They're still for sale and being manufactured. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Re:Brilliant

[Lumpy]

Yes. it's called quit playing with toys and run iPCop or other real firewall. I can do a lot more easier and it is brain dead easy to update myself. Built a nice mico ITX box with two ethernet ports into a router/firewall that is fantastic in every way and does not suck up all my time to manage it.

Re:Brilliant

[Lumpy]

"You'd have trouble finding tires for a Model T too."

Nope : http://www.cokertire.com/ Easy as pie. They even carry Model A tires.

Re:Brilliant

[operagost]

802.11b uses the same 2.4 GHz band that G and N does. Yes, N uses both 5 and 2.4 GHz. In fact, from my experience most of your neighbors are probably NOT "crapping on the 5GHz band" because the low-end routers, notebooks, and tablets don't support it.

Re:Brilliant

[Albanach]

I don't know, 11 year old routers might be pretty uncommon.

You can buy a wrt-54gl (the model with the original, larger, flash and ram) new from Amazon, today. Your netgear model is double the price.

Re:Brilliant

[ArcadeMan]

I've been watching for other options for the last four years, aside from $100+ per month for satellite with monthly caps of 2GB, there's nothing but the local cable company.

Re:Brilliant

[T-Bone-T]

You really should double-check your facts before you spot off something that is easily verifiable. Out of 388 wireless routers on Newegg, 14 of them are 54mbps or slower and 121 are 10x or more faster. Newegg makes it difficult to evaluate your IPv6 statement, though. Of the first 3 "featured" wireless routers, 2 mentioned IPv6 support while the third didn't say either way. Searching yielded 4 routers, none of which were the 2 "featured" routers I found that had IPv6 support. Router companies aren't exactly rushing but even a turtle can travel considerable distances given enough time.

Re:But... but... but...

[ganjadude]

well technically yes. I am sure that some other pissed off people out there will fork the revision and continue support for the version that is officially no longer supported. you see it happen all the time for example mySQL - MARIADB

Re:Time for a rename?

[petteyg359]

Why? Did the WRT350N cease to exist?

Blogspam

[Nimey]

And now for some karma whoring^W^W^Wthe actual details:

The OpenWrt Release Team would like to announce the final Attitude Adjustment Release (12.09).

Highlights since Backfire 10.03.1:
Dropped support for legacy Broadcom target (brcm-2.4)
Switched to Kernel 3.3
Switched to uClibc 0.9.33.2
Switched x86 images from ext2 to ext4 filesystem
Improved parallel building support
New netifd implementation to replace the old script based network configuration system
Switched to shadow passwords
Support for external overlay filesystems in release images
Various firewall enhancements
Wireless driver updates and stability improvements
Experimential support for 5 and 10 MHz channels in ath5k and ath9k
Package updates and dependency fixes
New target support: ramips, bcm2708 (Raspberry Pi) and others
Support for further router models
Support for building with eglic instead of uClibc
Support for 6RD configuration
Support for bridge firewalling in release images

Known Issues:
Most open tickets at the time of the final builds
Lower end devices with only 16 MiB RAM will easily run out of Memory, for bcm47xx based devices is Backfire with brcm-2.4 recommended

More detailed information: https://dev.openwrt.org/query?status=closed&group=resolution&milestone=Attitude+Adjustment+12.09
Detailed core changelog at: https://dev.openwrt.org/log/branches/attitude_adjustment
Detailed packages changelog at: https://dev.openwrt.org/log/branches/packages_12.09
Binaries can be downloaded at http://downloads.openwrt.org/attitude_adjustment/12.09/

Re:Blogspam

[Black Parrot]

And now for some karma whoring^W^W^Wthe actual details:

You left out the most important part:

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT (12.09, r36088)
    * 1/4 oz Vodka
    * 1/4 oz Gin
    * 1/4 oz Amaretto
    * 1/4 oz Triple sec
    * 1/4 oz Peach schnapps
    * 1/4 oz Sour mix
    * 1 splash Cranberry juice
Pour all ingredients into mixing
tin with ice, strain into glass.

(Reformatted to please Slashdot's filters.)

Rasberry Pi

[Anonymous Coward]

So now it runs on Rasberry Pi?
Just what I needed, a router with a single network interface!

Re:Time for a rename?

[ArcadeMan]

I suggest The Distribution Formerly Known As OpenWRT.

Sigh...

[Black Parrot]

A few seconds at openwrt.org will reveal that OpenWRT is a specialized Linux distribution, and they've simply migrated to the 3.3 kernel. Kind of like Ubuntu 10 migrated to 2.6, lo those many years ago.

Maybe this qualifies as news for some people, but it's certainly not something to get your panties in a bunch over.

The WRT54G had a good run, but it's obsolete.

[Above]

The WRT54G came out in 2002. The newer WRT54GL version was released in 2005. While these were phenomenal products with a long lifespan, they are obsolete by any standard. Things like no N support, no Gigabit Ethernet, and the lack of CPU and Memory to do cool things have been huge issues for a while.

Serious users have already moved on. Platforms like the Netgear WNDR3700v2 are cheap, easy to find, and offer modern features. No one is suggesting rolling your own from a Raspberry will be the most popular option, but that enabling it will be a cool option for many hackers.

Re:The WRT54G had a good run, but it's obsolete.

[Nimey]

I'm still using my 54GL with Tomato Firmware on it. Tomato seems to have died (last update for the mainline was in June 2010) but it seems fine, aside from not supporting newer things like IPv6 (software limitation), 802.11n, or GigE (hardware limitations), all of which are merely "nice to have" right now.

I do plan to replace the old beast, but will wait until my ISP finally brings out IPv6 support so that I can have the best possible router within my budget when that finally happens.

Re:The WRT54G had a good run, but it's obsolete.

[Lothsahn]

Tomato isn't dead... The main site isn't being updated--the devs either don't have access or don't update the site.

The two main branches of Tomato are:
Toastman: (What I use) http://www.4shared.com/dir/v1BuINP3/Toastman_Builds.html#dir=zBnbpdpY
Shibby: http://tomato.groov.pl/

I've been using Toastman tomato on a WNR3500Lv1 and a ASUS RT-N66U for months now. If you're going to get a new router, I'd strongly recommend the RT-N66U, because the WNR3500L has a v2 which is totally different hardware. In addition, the RT-N66U is very fast, stable (never crashed), nearly impossible to brick and is dual-band. The RT-N66U is $170, and it's been worth every penny. Signal output is very strong--I can pick up my internet in my neighbor's house, without adjusting transmitter output power. In addition, the devs appear to use the RT-N66U's personally, so it has the most testing.

Tomato has been rock solid, stable, and an excellent daily driver for me for the last 5 years or so. I strongly recommend it, and my friends and neighbors use it and have been very happy with it. Do update to Toastman or Shibby--they're doing an excellent job fixing issues and keeping things current.

I still use my WRT54G's as wireless bridges throughout my house, but they do show performance issues when I go above 10MBps Upload/30MB Download.

Artifact title

[tepples]

People have their underwear in a bunch over the fact that "OpenWRT" has become an artifact title. It no longer supports the appliance after which it was named (the WRT54G).

Re:Pi?

[Nimey]

So the Pi could be a wireless access point. Those only need 1x Ethernet + wireless.

Some people don't use wired Ethernet anymore.

Re:From IIGS to 3GS

[JustOK]

They named most of their products after the IIGS

Re:AR430W

[armanox]

Kernel 2.4 is a completely different beast then version >= 2.6.0. That was why the version went from 2.4 to 2.6 - back then the second number incremented for super major changes.

for bcm47xx ... Backfire with brcm-2.4 recommended

[bill_mcgonigle]

Right there in the release note, folks - if you have a 54G, use Backfire.

Newer hardware gets better kernels.

Next story.

still severely crippled

[dutchwhizzman]

A Raspberry Pi uses a single USB interface between it's CPU and all the IO. Even the "on board" Ethernet for the Model B is connected to the on board USB hub. By adding extra interfaces to the USB bus, you will not only limit bandwidth even more, but also probably make the Pi run less stable. You can prevent this by using an external powered USB hub, adding more complexity and cost to the Pi, but you'll still have limited bandwidth. At a theoretical maximum of 400Mbit (half duplex) getting a Pi to route anything above 50Mbit full duplex will become a challenge, with a theoretical maximum of 100Mbit Full Duplex (100 FD per interface, means 200 HD per interface, 2 interfaces, total 400Mbit HD). Given the fact that a WRT54G will at least switch 100Mbit full duplex and route 20+ Mbit via wireless, a Raspberry Pi plus a powered external hub plus USB ethernet/WiFi isn't that much of an upgrade. Getting a Gbit wireless N router that is supported will most likely cost you the same or less, be less complex in hardware and give you more bandwidth than a Pi.

Re:You should drop them anyway...

[Rob the Bold]

Below are the speedtests of two different routers using a wired connection.

Actiontec (about 2011) – 53.22 MB (down) 8.23 (up) Linksys WRT54G v2 (about 2004) – 23 MB (down) 7.76 (up)

I've got Time Warner cable internet, so I'm cool, then.

Debian + Intel DN2800MT.

[Robert Frazier]

This combination is what I use at home. Debian has all the software one needs. The DN2800MT can take a couple of mini pcie cards, and a pcie card. This gives me two radios (5/2.4GHz) and an extra ethernet port (total 2). It has plenty of SATA connectors for NAS (2x1TB 2.5" drives). I have the whole thing in a tiny M300 case. Power consumption after boot is about 14W under normal use. It is about 11W when idle, and 18W when hammered. It doesn't have a slew of ethernet ports, so I have to add 6W (v. active)/3W (idle) for a managed switch.

I looked at open WRT, but thought "why not go whole hog?".

Best wishes,
Bob

Re:Debian + Intel DN2800MT.

[Robert Frazier]

I don't know the bios version off the top of my head. For the wireless access point, I'm using an Atheros AR9285 for 2.4GHz, and AR9390 for 5GHz. They are both used with hostapd. One needs a separate configuration file for each, but that can be set in /etc/default/hostapd.

Best wishes,
Bob

Re:Lack of 2.4 isn't the problem

[Guspaz]

Lack of support for modern wireless networking (no 802.11n, on either 2.4GHz or 5 GHz), inability to perform any sort of processing whatsoever on faster connections (hitting those 80Mbps speeds requires disabling anything that might hit the CPU, so no stateful firewall, no QoS, no wifi encryption, no nothing), limited wired performance (100 megabit switch is a bottleneck for LAN use), limited conntrack ability due to tiny amounts of RAM and CPU power available, lack of USB ports for external connectivity (no hard disks, no 3G/4G data sticks, etc), enormously overpriced when sold new ($50 is enough to get you a simultaneous dual-band 802.11n router today), etc.

For modern internet connections, the thing is nearly useless. I've got a 50/10 VDSL2 line. The WRT54GL that I've got is incapable of routing that at full speed without seriously stripping it down to disable all the useful stuff, and even then its ancient 802.11g wireless radio won't even do half the speed of my connection. On top of that, the lack of a gigabit switch would bottleneck access to my file server (even my gigabit switch is a bottleneck there).

If you've got an old 10 meg internet connection and don't have much of a LAN, it might still be suitable. For people with modern connections, it's useless.