Submitted by Cheap routers sometimes lack a bit in functionality. Maybe you wish yours did VPN, had a guest network for relatives passing by, or supported IPv6. In most case, the hardware supports it, and all it takes to get these options is to install an alternative third-party firmware. Such firmwares also are frequently more reliable and faster than vendor-provided ones. So why not give them a try?
I’ve been using the Linksys WRT54GL for a few years now, running the Tomato firmware for much of the time. No doubt, this firmware allows advanced things that I could only dream of in the stock firmware. It’s not perfect though, and it doesn’t support some of the even higher-end features that I would consider, but it works well.
IPv6 is one unfortunate missing feature in the standard Tomato firmware, though there are alternate third-party builds that support it. So far, IPv6 hasn’t really caught on so it evens out. My previous ISP didn’t even support it, not sure about my current one.
Even if your ISP doesn’t provide IPv6, you can still subscribe to an IPv6 feed through a tunnel. Take a look at Hurricane Electric’s free tunnel broker (http://tunnelbroker.net/), for example. It will take, literally, less tan 5 minutes to set up the tunnel at the HE site. It will take longer at your side if you plan on loading DD-WRT or OpenWRT on your router in order to support IPv6, though.
This is what I attempted recently… My ISP (sonic.net) provides IPv6 tunnels for their customers, but my wrt54gl with dd-wrt apparently does not.
This is unfortunate since dd-wrt advertises it as a feature, and I made to to try the latest bleeding edge version just to be sure, but alas, still no ipv6.
I’m guessing the wrt54g series is just shy of being powerful enough to handle it?
Edit: typo
Edited 2011-05-16 00:03 UTC
You may need to install OpenWRT instead, in order to support IPv6 in your router. I believe that only micro DD-WRT images fit in your flash, and none of those have IPv6 included.
I install the “std” images… they fit fine in the GL – however, I see lots of other people complaining and lots of instructions on how to manually load and use ip6tables to make it work. I don’t have the patience for that currently :/
As for OpenWRT – I installed it, but it’s gonna take me some time to figure out how the admin works – since it’s quite foreign to dd-wrt.
2011 is the year of the linux router!
This joke is so damn old and so ridiculously often rehashed, it’s f–king annoying. Not funny. And worse, I continually fail to see the humor in it, miserably, even the first few times I saw it. I heard it back in 2004 when I first regained my interest in Linux (after a failed “attempt” with Red Hat in the late 1990s, early 2000s that was a result of my past experience in DOS/Windows more than anything else), and I’ve seen it every year–multiple times a year–since then. I don’t want to know the earliest recorded time it’s been said, I know it’s got to be pathetic.
This joke is beyond stale, I don’t see how it was funny to begin with. I’ve been using Linux on my desktop since 2006, and certainly so are many other newer Linux users. How about burying this… joke, if you can even call it that? For good? I’ll probably stab something if I keep hearing this crap in another 10 years from now… better make sure you’re not nearby, it may or may not be an inanimate object, just whatever’s closest and within easiest reach.
Maybe by then I’ll be visiting sites like Slashdot and OSNews.com less (or not at all), so then again maybe I’ll be destined to not hear it as much if that happens…
And no, don’t say that changing “desktop” to “router” makes it a different joke. It’s intentionally practically the same god damn thing.
Edited 2011-05-15 21:31 UTC
Except this time, it might have more truth in it then jest.
We’ve pretty much run out of IPv4 allocation around the world and with the vast majority of people with a broadband connection having a router of some kind, that is going to be a hell of a lot of routers to replace when ISPs start to support IPv6 in its native protocol if they wantboth IPv4 and IPv6 access at the same time.
This year IS when the allocation of IPv4 run out, it IS the year when people start to put linux on their router for IPv6 access, there is no getting around it. People will want IPv6 and if they can replace their router’s firmware with one that supports it, then they’ve saved themselfs a bit of cash in the process.
Unfortunatly, DD-WRT, tomato, openwrt etc don’t support IPv6 directly in tunnel config and some don’t even have compiled IPv6 builds.
So altho it has been a long standing joke, this is the year of linux on the router. I certainly put linux on my router this year (dlink dir-615 with dd-wrt v22) and the extra features its provided over the stock firmware is quite simply amazing.
Saying that, I have had dd-wrt on my la fon box for about 3-4 years now as a cheap wifi dongle on the 360.
“People will want IPv6 and if they can replace their router’s firmware with one that supports it, then they’ve saved themselfs a bit of cash in the process.”
That is, assuming people know what the hell “firmware” even is. On the large scale, for the most part, people don’t have a clue. Most people would be glad to toss their old router in the trash and buy a new “IPv6-capable” router to continue their business. Most people don’t know what exactly what IPv6 is or anything even remotely technical, but the advertising on TV and in the stores plus their wallet really add up to something. That is something they can understand. And I’m sure the ISPs have router manufacturers in their pockets, ready to tell their customers that they “need” to buy a new, IPv6-capable router.
So… no. I don’t really agree with that.
Edited 2011-05-15 22:21 UTC
Correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t a lot of routers already use some form of embedded Linux?
Harden the f*ck up, it’s a joke directed at the speculators and VCs that invested heavily in Linux in the late 90s anticipating an explosion in “desktop Linux” use that never eventuated.
“Harden the f*ck up, it’s a joke directed at the speculators and VCs that invested heavily in Linux in the late 90s anticipating an explosion in “desktop Linux” use that never eventuated.”
Harden the f*ck up? Hello… I’ve heard this same god damn “joke” probably a hundred times, at least, over the years, since around 2004. It’s not funny, barely even worthy of being called a “joke”, and it’s annoying as hell. It’s f–king 2011. No hardening necessary–just some STFU to those who continue to toss this “joke” out there year after year… after year… after year… after god damn year. Seriously, it’s enough already.
Edited 2011-05-16 00:47 UTC
I dislike people using God’s name in vain, but I don’t see a need to go on blistering, rage-filled rants about that. I shrug and ignore it.
Some people find it funny, just like some people find it amusing to make jokes about Blue Screens of Death and Reality Distortion Fields. Both are tired cliches, but get a few chuckles here and there and really don’t harm anyone.
A colleague of mine that lost some significant capital to a fail local Linux endeavour even finds the joke amusing.
You’re taking it too personally. Seriously, HTFU.
God’s name is “God”? Bit generic don’t you think?
All the routers I’ve used have had BSD of some sort in them, not Linux. Why, I don’t know. Maybe the devs creating the routers just as more familiar with modifying BSD or something.
That said, I too have an old Linksys WRT54G lying in the closet, might be fun to tinker with it a little and install DD-WRT on it. Then I’ll have atleast one non-BSD router
BSD licence doesn’t force you to open your changes to the code
This way those companies can benefit from the work of others and contribute nothing 🙁
Let’s not start a flamewar on licences please
Regards
Except one might argue you started it, which makes this post quite funny to read
But I totally agree with you. It’s not the place.
Edited 2011-05-16 15:54 UTC
I just pointed out the reason why they chose a BSD system, nothing else
Regards
Some sort of BSD> Really?? What kind of routers were they?
I think that was the point – my interpretation was that twitterfire was mocking/satirizing a joke that has become cliche’d due to overuse, rather than repeating the joke itself.
I can see it is good to have to option of rewriting the firmware but for me it doesn’t touch the basic problem.
For example: the time I most want to connect to the routers own website is when it isn’t able to connect via ADSL. From experience it is at that precise moment too darn busy to respond.
In extreme cases like when BT had a major failure …. an ADSL router wouldn’t even respond to DHCP requests … for 24 hours. One very hacked off client.
As routers go I am contemplating building one: probably based on an mini-itx motherboard with an Atom chipset with a smallish SSD hard drive running OpenBSD (or Debian or similar) on the basis that it might have the capacity to be far less irritating when ADSL is pfaffing around as well as caching DNS and web access more thoroughly.
Am sure some of my jaundiced view point comes from having a rural ADSL connection which drops connection each time the weather thinks of changing. Usually connection can be re-established and usually it needs manual intervention…