# Last dumb question about linksys wrt routers?



## johnspack (Jul 22, 2009)

I'm assuming I want the wrt54g2 model,  not the wrt54gl model for windows?  Sorry never bought higher end router before,  need this for my server network.  The gl one is 20 buck more anyways.....


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## mlee49 (Jul 22, 2009)

I think the G2 is the newer revision:

http://www.linksysbycisco.com/US/en/products/Routers

I have the GL and it's worked great so far.  Mine even came with the USB stick.


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## mrhuggles (Jul 23, 2009)

WRT54G* = horrible router, unbearably bad, makes you want to cry
WRT54G* running openWRT + X-Wrt = unbearably good, makes you want to cry because it never fails and performs faster than you can possibly imagine, think that the WRT54GL is possibly better for doing that? yep, it sure is

EDIT: anyways, everybody should be warned about how bad it is, if you know someone that has one try giving it a go, try some torrents or even do something as mundane as port scanning the router from inside the network and it will crash right away

actually... I've found that almost all routers like that are that way.. i'm surprised that there are not more open routers, routers meant to run linux and stuff like that. seems to me they should sell well... hehe oops i guess the WRT54GL is sorta meant for that huh.


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## BobBarr (Jul 23, 2009)

WRT54GL = win


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## erocker (Jul 23, 2009)

I've been using a WRT54G for about two years and never had a problem. Newest firmware's work wonders.


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## johnspack (Jul 24, 2009)

Well,  I guess I have to spend the extra $20 then for the GL,  and I guess openwrt + whiterussian.  I'm gathering that dd-wrt isn't as good.  Thanks for the input all!


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## Kenshai (Jul 24, 2009)

I had a WRT54G with DD-WRT and it performed admirably for the past 4 years, sadly enough. It has passed away, and I'm off to bigger and better (and faster) things.


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## johnspack (Jul 24, 2009)

Well,  I hope I get this right,  apparently you have to flash with a 2.4 kernel first,  then upgrade to 2.6.  They recommend to set some nvram parameters that can only be done under 2.4.  Something tells me I'm going to be playing with this router for a week before I can deploy it!  I'm also wondering if ocing it would help with a wired only network...  and if you can do that in openwrt.  I know dd-wrt has an ocing feature.  Sure hope I don't brick this thing right away!


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## El Fiendo (Jul 24, 2009)

Pretty sure OCing only boosts wireless signal strength. Could be wrong.


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## mrhuggles (Jul 25, 2009)

whiterussian is good, if you try out kamikaze then go with kernel 2.4 and dont upgrade [kernel 2.6 has no wifi drivers for broadcom]


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## johnspack (Jul 25, 2009)

Is white russian really better than kamikaze?  I notice it's getting older now...  Also I'm going to disable the wireless as this will be on a small server network,  I don't want wireless on that.


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## johnspack (Jul 25, 2009)

Looks like I'll just use a prebuilt x-wrt image and call it a day.  Nice and simple!


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## mrhuggles (Jul 26, 2009)

i haven't run kamikaze in a really long time.

that having been said i try it out about every year or so to see if its better yet and last time i checked it wasn't, its not that there is something wrong with kamikaze its just that X-Wrt sucked for it and didn't support everything yet, and was kinda buggy in other ways too.

but also x-wrt whiterussian is not updating anymore, but if you need any help with it lemme know and I'l be happy to help you out, there are a few things like getting uPnP working good, and getting a modem connectible through it that isn't really obvious how to do


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## eidairaman1 (Jul 26, 2009)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linksys_WRT54G_series

thats info about all the routers of that genre, TBH the worst one of the bunch i would have to say is the WRT54GSver 5.0, Due to Firmware flaws, I was having connectivity problems and then it would quit when there was Gaming load on it. I gave up on it and bought a Netgear WPN-824 ver 2.0 which has 7 internal antennas and seems more reliable than the other model, this router had a pretty High Rating in CPU Mag or Max PC mag (cant remember which one).

Btw I need some assistance myself at this thread here, I greatly appreciate the help.

http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=100168


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## kyle2020 (Jul 26, 2009)

mrhuggles said:


> WRT54G* = horrible router, unbearably bad, makes you want to cry
> WRT54G* running openWRT + X-Wrt = unbearably good, makes you want to cry because it never fails and performs faster than you can possibly imagine, think that the WRT54GL is possibly better for doing that? yep, it sure is
> 
> EDIT: anyways, everybody should be warned about how bad it is, if you know someone that has one try giving it a go, try some torrents or even do something as mundane as port scanning the router from inside the network and it will crash right away
> ...



Ive been using a WRT54G for a few years now and its had no issues whatsoever, maybe yours was bad?


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## El Fiendo (Jul 27, 2009)

If you haven't bought yet, don't get a WRT54G. Versions 5 and up (8.2 I think is current) have all been hardware neutered due to people running Linux and Linksys wanting to cash in a bit. The flash memory and RAM have all been reduced which generally leads to router freezes and crashes. WRT54GL was released at the the time revision 5.0 came out, with the L standing for Linux, so essentially they just moved the pre neuter WRT54G's into a new product line and dumbed down their current offerings.

DD-WRT Micro is the only thing you can install on version 5+ whereas the GL can have the full version. However its usually 30-40 dollars more. The WRT54GS and the WRT54G2 current versions are neutered just like the WRT54G (same specs but with a faster processor) so you'd have to do DD-WRT Micro. The only thing the WRT54G2 gets you is a sleek box and internal antennas.

I recommend the ASUS WL-520GU as it will offer the same hardware specs as the WRT54GL but it comes with a faster processor (240MHz vs a 200MHz). It's generally about half the price too. It is DD-WRT supported, and you can even get the USB Print Server (router feature) working with DD-WRT. There are better routers like the WRT54G-TM as it has 32MB of RAM as opposed to the GL and ASUS router only having 16MB, and 8MB of flash memory as opposed to the other two only having 4. This means less freezes and crashes. However this router is really rare and the second revision (the WRTU54G-TM) can't be flashed to DD-WRT so you'd need to make sure you were getting the WRT54G-TM.


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## mrhuggles (Jul 27, 2009)

people who are using vanilla routers and having it work well probably aren't' really heavily using it or are using a linux router that is good, not a whole lot of them out there, the linksys ones aren't, they use an old linux and have an issue of crashing when too many connections have been left open at once [5 day timeout, and no graceful way to close them so it just runs out of memory] then there is VXWorks, which 99% of routers use now a days cuz its smaller than linux, anything that runs VXWorks is gonna suck really bad, it'l crash when you use it and its guaranteed to crash at least every 2 weeks or so, you should note that my openWRT only goes down when the power goes down, without fail, its never crashed its never slowed down, it HAS ran out of connections which is NORMAL and when it did it gracefully closed the oldest connections first to make room so it wouldn't crash

as far as good linux routers go? wow the list is very few and VERY far apart, qwest gave me some junky looking dsl modem with a built in router and its got a decent linux on it.... but I've never seen anything buy able from the store that works good, not in the SOHO market anyways, i have a cisco 1720, they seem to be pretty reliable


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## El Fiendo (Jul 27, 2009)

I just got an Asus WL-520GU and straight out of the box put Tomato on it. I'm going to piss around with Tomato because its the only one that seems to be able to do bandwidth monitoring by IP. Even then its a special add on that will do it. If I don't like it, I'll try DD-WRT full as all I've been able to work with was DD-WRT Micro due to my dead WRT54G revision 6 and its hardware limits. 

Past that, there's a ton of things to try.


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## mrhuggles (Jul 27, 2009)

why do people like dd-wrt, all the features are broke still arnt they? like where is the packages


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## El Fiendo (Jul 27, 2009)

I don't know. The only reason I was running DD-WRT because it was about the only thing I could get on my WRT54G. I didn't really piss around with it because it was pretty finicky. I might try it after Tomato here, have to see what Tomato gets me and if I like it. If anything I like DD-WRT's interface over Tomato's so far.


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## mrhuggles (Jul 28, 2009)

awww, 2mb flash


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