Moderator: Thanas
I think it's against international law for the Germans to come through Belgium again.Bounty wrote:I can get the whr-g54s for peanuts on Amazon Germany but they won't ship to Belgium
How many times do you actually look at a router UI anyway? And as for CLI, if one really wanted that, OpenWrt which I have used is far superior.RThurmont wrote:Well for starters, in my experience, it actually works, whereas DD-WRT for whatever reason failed to run correctly on my WRT54GL. But really, as I see it, the main reasons for using Tomato are the fantastic, elegant user interface (which IMO pwns that of DD-WRT in every respect), and the really excellent default configuration, which IMO neatly balances mainstream functionality with customizability.
With DD-WRT, there are a large number of highly specialized variants intended to do one thing, whereas with Tomato, you instead have one general purpose firmware, that's very easy to customize to accomplish specific objectives. I started out running a single WRT54GL as a conventional WPA encrypted access point, then added two more, and with just a minor change to the router's configuration, turned it into a highly reliable wireless distribution system.
The other really nice aspect of Tomato, IMO, is the command line environment. DD-WRT also provides this IIRC, but I never used it, however, I will say that the Tomato CLI strikes me as being more or less perfect for a small device. You get the ash shell, a 700kb JFFS2 volume that can be optionally mounted, and used to store your own scripts or other data, vi, and a well-rounded suite of tools. You can use this for a number of useful things also, like an ssh gateway (telnet into your router from Windows, and then use the router to ssh into a remote server).
I really am a hardcore Tomato fimrware fanboy. All of the features I've mentioned above are probably availible with other firmwares, but I've fallen in love with Tomato, Its one of the few software projects I've seen that has managed to produce both a really really good GUI (or web UI), plus a really really good command line environment.
In fact, I'm going to go out on a limb, and declare Tomato Firmware to be my favorite operating system, period. I realized, on reflecting back as I wrote this post, that Tomato Firmware is the only OS I've used to any major extent, that has both satisfied my desires in terms of functionality, and at the same time, not given me any headaches at all. I can't say that about any version of Windows I've used, nor BSD, nor the Linux desktops I run, nor OS X, nor OS/2, nor Plan 9 (where I actually had to hack the ethernet driver, with assistance from one of their kernel devs, to make it work with my NIC).
The only minor annoyance with Tomato I've experienced is that if the router is disconnected from its power supply, or shut down, it loses the date setting, and will report to you that the year is 1969. This is not a major problem (and IIRC, other firmwares don't bother to provide logging period, due to the lack of a real time clock to facilitate that). This really does not cause any actual problems, and I actually find it enjoyable to occasionally to ssh into the router and reset the date. Nonetheless, I feel obligated to disclose that fact. Additionally, some features do not work in all modes; for instance, MAC filtering does not work when the routers is being used as a WDS.
If you can live with the above, I really strongly reccommend Tomato for all devices it supports. I'm presently running Tomato version 1.07, and can certainly answer any questions you may have about that particular version, and I'm sure most of what I've had to say applies to newer releases as well. I'd update the firmware, except I really hate doing that, and the current firmware really runs perfectly from my perspective.
As an aside, there are cases where what you're doing is sufficiently specialized so as to warrant using DD-WRT, in my opinion. There are variants of DD-WRT with 2.6 kernels (no wifi support), variants optimized for running public access points (with splash screens and all that), and also variants that support versions 5 through 8 of the WRT54G router. In those cases, I probably would take the time to try and get DD-WRT working, but for all general purpose stuff, assuming I had a supported router, I would use Tomato.
, which I'm tempted to get to supplement my WDS, and frankly, after my last experience with it, I'd rather avoid DD-WRT.
It's worth pointing out that the WRT54G does not play nicely with certain versions of Linux (specifically, those that have ipv6 enabled) because its ipv6 support is ... well, it is not. This causes DNS lookups to take forever: upwards of 10 seconds for a typical lookup as the system tries an ipv6 lookup first, then drops down to an ipv4 lookup.RThurmont wrote:The best buy in routers today, IMO, is the WRT54G (which, as an added plus, is now more easily flashable with custom firmware). You can get a v8 WRT54G for $50 bucks or less, and they offer relatively nice range and performance.
No it doesn't. For some reason, even though the router handles DNS requests, the DHCP server built into the router sets DNS to the ISP's DNS server IP addresses, not itself. In fact, the router's built-in DNS server seems to be an almost "stealth" feature; it is not mentioned in the feature lists or the quick connection booklet at all. I was totally unaware that this functionality even existed in this model of router until I saw someone mention it on the Internet.phongn wrote:The DHCP server doesn't automatically set DNS to the router's IP?
No thanks, I've got the Linksys set up.Mobius wrote:Bounty; if you are still looking for a router, i sell my us robotics for a few euross: i need to change for the shitty philips one in order to activate Belgacom TV.
1 invoice to pay for everything, no need to cable for VOO and it was cheaper than paying activation fees to VOO and then the monthly feeAnd Belgacom TV? Seriously? From what I heard it kills your internet connection and costs way to much for the quality you get.
