You know you’re a geek when you decide to upgrade your Linksys Router from it’s standard OS to a linux kernel. But, I just did that- and my router now runs DD-WRT.
The instructions to upgrade my WRT54Gv5.0 worked like a champ!
Given that it’s only been up for a few hours, it’s too early to tell if it is any better. The administration console is definitely more advanced and a bit better for me, so I do like that. Also, there is this setting to supposedly increase the power for the router’s signal. I’m hoping that will increase connectivity range; but so far, the tests are inconclusive.
Definitely cool, however.
I’ve been thinking about this for a while now. Finally took the plunge last night, following your example ;). Took a call to cable modem support to get the cable modem/VOIP phone device reset (it has a 6 hour battery. Pulling the power just doesn’t cut it, and I didn’t notice the microscopic reset hole on the back of the device), but now it’s up and running. It was a bit dicey for an hour there when I had to tell my wife she couldn’t use the internet because I broke it upgrading the OS on the router. She was not even a little bit pleased about that.
My favorite possible feature so far? The ability to advertise multiple SSIDs with different VLAN treatments. So I can offer a guest wireless that can’t see anything in the house. Currently I accomplish that with two different routers stacked back to back. I haven’t actually tried it yet, though. Oh, and it looks like I can put a click through screen on it (which would allow me to measure utilization using Analytics or access logs on a remote web server).
Looks very promising.
When you are in the “I wonder if this hack is going to work” phase, it’s a little scary 🙂 I had an old router in standby for just in case I bricked the thing. But, it seems to have worked.
There are lots of additional features available with DD-WRT. But I haven’t had time to do anything interesting yet…. Maybe I never will! Ha!