[TriLUG] Linksys long in the tooth?

[Paul McLanahan]

Just to throw in my $0.02...

I've been a fan of Buffalo wireless routers since my last experience w/ the
Linksys BEFW11S4. The Linksys required a power-cycle every day or so; more
if you had the audacity to use it. I bought my first Buffalo (WHR-G54S) on a
recommendation from the DD-WRT wiki, which said that it was the most
cost-effective fully compatible router available. I believe it was around
$50 at the time. I used it for a while with the default firmware from
Buffalo, and it worked just fine and without need for any babysitting, even
under heavy load. I did eventually install DD-WRT on it for the feature set,
but apart from not being the most intuitive web interface in the world, I
thought the Buffalo did just fine w/o any mods. I've also had a couple
friends get them on my recommendation, and they've had great experiences (so
far).

I now have 2 Buffalos in the house (added a WHR-HP-G54), which are both
running DD-WRT and using WDS to create a cohesive network for sharing wired
and wireless devices from both routers. DD-WRT is great of course, but the
Buffalo hardware is the best I've found for the money.

That being said, however, it's nearly impossible to find the things anymore.
An Australian company called CSIRO has an injunction against Buffalo which
has held up in court. So Buffalo isn't allowed to sell wireless equipment
using the 802.11a or g standard in the US. This lawsuit threatens other
companies as well, though there aren't yet similar injunctions against any
of the other leaders in the field. More info here:
http://www.buffalotech.com/press/releases/buffalo-issues-a-statement-about-the-csiro-appeal/.
Hopefully this will all be worked out someday and we can find these in
stores again. If my Buffalos break, I'm not sure what I'd go with. I'd love
to build a soekris (http://www.soekris.com/) box and use m0n0wall, but
that's at least $300 after the board, case, wireless cards and antennae, and
definitely overkill for my dinky home network. I've used an old PC before,
but the space and power consumption just seems too high for what I need.
These cheap plastic routers that will run the 3rd party linux firmwares are
perfect, but finding reliable and compatible ones seems to be getting
harder. I was excited by this discussion for this very reason, but I haven't
really heard any glowing recommendations for any recent products (apart from
perhaps the WRT54GL). If any of you have any, I'd love to hear them.

Oh.. and to stay somewhat on topic, DD-WRT does an excellent job w/ DDNS.
I'm using OpenDNS.com and DNSoMatic.com to keep my DNS preferences and
dynamic domains up-to-date. dnsomatic.com is too new to be a default config
choice in the router firmware, but DD-WRT allows you to setup a custom entry
and it works perfectly.

Thanks (and sorry about the book it seems I've just written :)

Paul McLanahan

PS - I found my WHR-HP-G54 recently on ebay (preinstalled w/ DD-WRT), but
they are getting pricy there due to low supply.