[TriLUG] WRT54G

[Alan Porter]

My first response to Patrick was very short because I know where he is
coming from, and I thought I could dump a lot more useful information to
him directly, rather than over the list.  But since there seems to be an
interest, I will share.

I have a handful of spare routers left over from the oven project.  And
at the last TriLUG meeting, the gentleman who normally sits behind me
[1] offered me a "Cantenna" directional antenna.  Armed with these toys,
I went on a quest to try these routers as a long-range
internet-borrowing tool.  Kevin Otte convinced me to try OpenWRT.  He's
running White Russian at home and it has served him well, so we
downloaded Kamikaze to try it out.  I was impressed at how easy it was
to flash, but I was disappointed that it did not load a web interface by
default.  I did not want to "join the club"... becoming a full-time
router tinkerer.  I just wanted firmware that would allow me to use the
router as an access point client.  So my patience was low.  Sure, it was
cool to SSH in to the router.  But at the time, I just wanted point and
click.

Kevin and I did manage to get the web interface loaded, and I played
with it for a day.  I was not 100% sure that I would be able to
re-create the steps to load the package by myself.  And when I finally
used the web interface, I found it quirky.  I would set something, and
then wonder why nothing had changed.  Later, I discovered that there was
a "commit changes" link at the bottom of the web interface.  Apparently,
just telling it what to do was not enough.  I had to say (Picard voice)
"make it so".

Since I had heard good things about Tomato, I decided to try it on one
router.  Unfortunately, the OpenWRT "firmware update" page choked on the
Tomato bin file.  So I had to fall back to using TFTP to load Tomato. 
This struck me as a little bit unfriendly on the part of OpenWRT, but I
could accept that, as long as the reason was technical and not just
childish "lock-in".  I don't know why it did not work at first, and I am
not looking back.

Tomato proved to be easy to install (at least, when upgrading from
standard Linksys firmware), and it was flat dead easy to run.  I had it
set up as an access point client in no time, and it was showing me a
"site survey" of my neighborhood, updating every few seconds.  THIS IS
WHAT I WAS TRYING TO ACCOMPLISH.

So in short, my brief experiences with OpenWRT and Tomato were
instructive and fun.  I came away liking Tomato enough to endorse it to
someone who just wants the darned thing to work.  And I developed a
respect for OpenWRT as well, in a "Gentoo" sort of way (the guys are
smart, but a lot more patient than I am at the moment).

I have not tried DD-WRT... yet.  It did not fit into my goal of testing
the Cantenna.

Alan




[1] I apologize for forgetting your name (again).  But after this
Cantenna project, I think you might be my new best friend.


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