one-day sale on hackable wireless router

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Wed, Sep 03, 2008 at 11:23:34AM -0400, D. Hugh Redelmeier wrote:
> Dell is selling the Linksys WRT54GL wireless router for $39.99 today.  I 
> expect that shipping is free.  (Canada Computers current price is $66.99.)
> http://www1.ca.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/hotdeals_redhot?c=ca&cs=cadhs1&l=en&s=dhs&dgc=AF&cid=3881&lid=77903
> 
> This is the classic router for running OpenWRT and other third-party 
> firmware.  All this firmware is Linux based, including the original 
> firmware delivered in the router.
> 
> I prefer other routers with more capability (but they cost 
> more).  In particular, there are other routers with twice the flash, twice 
> the RAM and even USB ports.
> 
> A good source for information about router hardware and OpenWRT support 
> is: http://wiki.openwrt.org/TableOfHardware
> 
> One downside of many of these routers, including the WRT54GL is that it 
> uses a Broadcom wireless chip.  Open source drivers for the chip don't 
> work yet for router use so you are stuck with the binary driver which 
> means you are stuck with a 2.4 kernel.
> 
> The lack of 802.11n may be an issue for some.
> 
> Having said all that, the WRT54GL is certainly the standard hackable 
> router.  Thus it is the best supported.  Its limitations only show up when 
> you want to get really creative.

I did some research lately when I decided to buy a new router, and after
much searching, I did specifically NOT buy a WRT54GL but instead an Asus
Wl500g Premium v1.

The reasons are:

The WRT54GL uses an integrated broadcom wifi chip.  It has no open
source drivers yet, and the existing binary module for it only works
with 2.4 kernels.  Many of the replacement software projects really want
to use 2.6 for new features, leaving all the broadcom wifi units behind,
which includes teh WRT54GL.

The broadcom has 4MB flash, 16MB ram and runs 200MHz.

The asus has 8MB flash, 32MB ram, and runs 264MHz and has two USB2
ports.  It also has a minipci broadcom wifi card, which can replaced
with another wifi card with better linux support (like 2.6 kernel
support).  This gives way more possibilities.

I paid $80 for mine at canada computers.  They sell both the v1 and v2.
The v2 uses an integrated broadcom wifi just like the WRT54GL and is
hence not very interesting.  It also costs a bit more and runs only
240MHz.  The v2 clearly says V2 in the FCC number, the serial number,
and even embossed on the front of the unit.  Yay for someone finally
clearly labeling hardware. :)

So as you said, those are the issues, but my searching found that the
WRT54GL is NOT the standard anymore, the Wl500g Premium V1 is the
standard for those places in the world you can buy one, like here.  It
is certainly worth the slightly higher cost.  It also has much better
cooling and runs a lot cooler than the linksys.  The linksys is no
longer the best supported mainly due to the integreated broadcom.  It is
holding development back and will probably stop being updated if the
reverse engineering for the broadcom chip doesn't progress.  It looks
like a dead end to me, so I went with the recommended unit instead.

-- 
Len Sorensen
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