$60 router + DD-WRT = high-end wireless router and switch

[dbarrow]

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=818

Posted by George Ou @ 4:14 pm

Getting a high-powered wireless router with some high-end features is a lot cheaper than most people think. In fact it doesn’t cost any more than a regular router needed to connect to the Internet which allows the sharing of IP addresses between multiple clients. With the addition of DD-WRT (http://www.dd-wrt.com/dd-wrtv2/index.php), you can turn a cheap commodity router in to a high-end wireless router and switch. With the addition of a high-powered antenna located high up in the air which amplifies the send and receive capability of the wireless access point, anyone can set up their own wireless hotspot service with a massive coverage area. ...

*If George says it's good ... believe it!

[Tortanick]

I've heard of DD-WRT, but I'm more intrested in XWrt (a variant of OpenWRT). Sadly I can only find routers supported, not ADSL2+ modems/routers.

edit, the one posted their appears to be adsl2+, looks like DD-WRT is ahead in supporting them. Must buy and upgrade to XWrt later. Thanks for bringing this to my attention.

[Tortanick]

Update, I have now tried both DD-wrt and X-wrt briefly.

My first impressions of both is that they wipe the floor over "professional" firmware. Open Source wins again.

As for how they compair to each other,

dd-wrt has a nicer interface, that doesn't mean easier, it means it looks better, however the documentation, while not outstanding dose cover everything, unlike X-wrt
X-wrt I've only been useing for about a minuet, but allrady it strikes me as being the technically better choice. Two things that struck me are that:
On dd-wrt the timezone was a list of UTC +-x options, on X-wrt it was based on major world cities, I don't know why but that really makes a diffrence for me.
dd-wrt has its features and thats that, all over x-wrt are buttons to "install this feature" like install NTP client, I like that, no unessacary code is installed and if the develoers don't have to worry about space, they just let the user decided what features to use.

update: I'm beginning to think the target for X-wrt are professional Cisco admins with an eye for a real bargain, I've come to this conclusion after seeing the DCHP settings page that contains:
Enabled/Disabled
Start number
Max leases
Lease Minuets

And a drop down box called "Options for Lan" with about 100 options that you can add a value to, the value is typed in, (string) (ip) and (int) all feature, some options I've heard of like Subnet Mask, name server and time server, Others are a little odder like SMTP server and then you get the really bizzare like Bootfile name and HTTP Proxy for phone-spesific-applications".

I'm not touching anything on that list, but I imagine your getting your money's worth for a $60 router if you can customise that :)


Note: if you see references to OpenWRT in X-wrt don't be suprised. X-wrt is basically OpenWRT with some extra packages preinstalled for ease of use (like a web UI)