Linksys WRT54GL $49.99 @ Fry's B&M Archived From: Hot Deals |
Fry's B&M has the WRT54GL (Linux-based, can flash to dd-wrt) for $49.99 this weekend. Normal price there is $69.99, and it's $64.99 at the egg.
Once out of the box, it took me ~10 minutes to get it up and running with Tomato. Highly recommended.
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What can 3rd party flashing like tomato & dd-wrt do for the avg home user?
for the average home user? nothing really. Maybe QoS if you have VOIP or the ability to increase wifi signal. Sometimes 3rd party can be MORE stable than linksys firmware but i haven't noticed any changes when i switch to tomato. although i do like tomato better because of the layout and it has way more things to mess around with.
raise output power
learn linux (ssh into the box)
learn the RMA process 
Depends on what you call average.
Personally I use QOS to ensure that my gaming will not suffer when our kids are watching streaming videos, (or if I had VOIP phone service).
I set it up so that the kids computer does not have internet after midnight.
I use MAC address filtering (for some additional security).
I set a lower priority for some things that don't need it, like our TiVo updates.
I find that there is a lot to DD-WRT and can't see living without it now.
IMHO
dorkiedoode said:for the average home user? nothing really. Maybe QoS if you have VOIP or the ability to increase wifi signal. Sometimes 3rd party can be MORE stable than linksys firmware but i haven't noticed any changes when i switch to tomato. although i do like tomato better because of the layout and it has way more things to mess around with.
scaper said:Depends on what you call average.
Personally I use QOS to ensure that my gaming will not suffer when our kids are watching streaming videos, (or if I had VOIP phone service).
I set it up so that the kids computer does not have internet after midnight.
I use MAC address filtering (for some additional security).
I set a lower priority for some things that don't need it, like our TiVo updates.
I find that there is a lot to DD-WRT and can't see living without it now.
IMHO
dorkiedoode said:for the average home user? nothing really. Maybe QoS if you have VOIP or the ability to increase wifi signal. Sometimes 3rd party can be MORE stable than linksys firmware but i haven't noticed any changes when i switch to tomato. although i do like tomato better because of the layout and it has way more things to mess around with.
That is not a typical home user. Most home users don't even know of QOS, MAC, or even internet restrictions. Btw, mac filtering is a fairly useless form of security. If somebody really wanted to get in, simple mac filtering won't stop them.
and I think this is still insanely over priced. For $49.99 gets you a wrt54gl with only 4/8 megs of memory. Especially with the dropping prices on N hardware, and the prices of the wrt54g on eBay this is way overpriced.
I use Tomato and like it better than the factory firmware. It has a detailed site survey function that allows me to see what wireless channel everyone else in the neighborhood is using for their routers so I can pick a non used channel. That cured all the speed problems, disconnects and other headaches I used to have.
mac address filtering is silly
just setup TACACS+ or 802.1x
j/k
dd-wrt is cool but if you can spend a few bucks get the sveasoft i know they've had 16 SSID in production for a while (each ssid different passwords too!)
you can pollute the neighborhood with SSID-spam
are there not many sales for this router? I've been looking around for a few weeks and this is the lowest priced I've seen so far.
dorkiedoode said:for the average home user? nothing really. Maybe QoS if you have VOIP or the ability to increase wifi signal. Sometimes 3rd party can be MORE stable than linksys firmware but i haven't noticed any changes when i switch to tomato. although i do like tomato better because of the layout and it has way more things to mess around with.
http://digg.com/mods/Turn_your_60_router_into_a_600_router_FOR_FREE
that article mensions only dd-wrt but there's also tomato as mentioned above..
vulcun said:are there not many sales for this router? I've been looking around for a few weeks and this is the lowest priced I've seen so far.
In my experience these doesn't go on sale all that often. You should look at the DD-WRT site for other compatible routers if using DD-WRT as it supports a lot more hardware than Tomato and OpenWRT. The best deals on DD-WRT/Tomato/OpenWRT routers used to be the Buffalo brand routers that could be picked up fairly regularly last year for $20-25 bucks after rebate. However a lawsuit for patent infringement has forced them out of the USA market.
Wow, didn't expect to see this deal rank in the red.
Yes, it's unfortunate, but wireless G routers seem to be more expensive now that Buffalo has stopped selling them. This wouldn't have been an especially good deal a few months ago, but if you want a good quality router that takes dd-wrt or Tomato without a hitch, for better or worse this is your best choice. If you don't want or need that, then sure -- adequate G routers are available at cheaper prices. But I'm not sure how this is a bad deal if you want or need 3rd party firmware.
Amazon now has it at $49.99 as of this morning. Before this morning, the cheapest I saw this anywhere was $60.
timless said:scaper said:Depends on what you call average.
Personally I use QOS to ensure that my gaming will not suffer when our kids are watching streaming videos, (or if I had VOIP phone service).
I set it up so that the kids computer does not have internet after midnight.
I use MAC address filtering (for some additional security).
I set a lower priority for some things that don't need it, like our TiVo updates.
I find that there is a lot to DD-WRT and can't see living without it now.
IMHO
dorkiedoode said:for the average home user? nothing really. Maybe QoS if you have VOIP or the ability to increase wifi signal. Sometimes 3rd party can be MORE stable than linksys firmware but i haven't noticed any changes when i switch to tomato. although i do like tomato better because of the layout and it has way more things to mess around with.
That is not a typical home user. Most home users don't even know of QOS, MAC, or even internet restrictions. Btw, mac filtering is a fairly useless form of security. If somebody really wanted to get in, simple mac filtering won't stop them.
and I think this is still insanely over priced. For $49.99 gets you a wrt54gl with only 4/8 megs of memory. Especially with the dropping prices on N hardware, and the prices of the wrt54g on eBay this is way overpriced.
This is a great price for a DD-WRT/Tomato compatible piece of hardware. If you need the advanced features of these 3rd party firmwares I would jump. I have bought a ton of these over the last few months for installing wireless networks of clients (bridged/repeater mode is awsome!) I would never by a 54g because of the limited memory (2mb) on those routers if you are planning on upgrading to a 3rd party firmware as this restricts you to the micro builds. You also have the added steps of removing vxworks which is not for the average user, gl anyone can do.
Just a FYI, I have noticed FRY's often has these on sale unadvertised.
nneelix said:
This is a great price for a DD-WRT/Tomato compatible piece of hardware. If you need the advanced features of these 3rd party firmwares I would jump. I have bought a ton of these over the last few months for installing wireless networks of clients (bridged/repeater mode is awsome!) I would never by a 54g because of the limited memory (2mb) on those routers if you are planning on upgrading to a 3rd party firmware as this restricts you to the micro builds. You also have the added steps of removing vxworks which is not for the average user, gl anyone can do.
Just a FYI, I have noticed FRY's often has these on sale unadvertised.
Vxworks is pretty easy to do. There's tutorials out there to follow which make it pretty painless. It's just like installing firmware a couple times as opposed to one single time.
Good price on the router.
Edit:
Actually I would buy this netgear wireless-N router:
Netgear WNR834B
Put on dd-wrt firmware:
DD-wrt how-to
Netgear firmware really really sucks, but with dd-wrt it would be better than the linksys in my opinion. It has a gigabit switch in it too - wayyyy better for NAS solutions than the linksys and it is wireless N
Hey i found an excellent site for you if you wanted to "see and feel" the features tomato has to offer.
http://lampiweb.com/tomato/status-log.htm
UAIron said:
Actually I would buy this netgear wireless-N router:
Netgear WNR834B
Put on dd-wrt firmware:
DD-wrt how-to
Netgear firmware really really sucks, but with dd-wrt it would be better than the linksys in my opinion. It has a gigabit switch in it too - wayyyy better for NAS solutions than the linksys and it is wireless N
That netgear router has some terrible reliability issues if you check the customer reviews. 42% of people at Newegg give it 1 star.
namlook said:UAIron said:
Actually I would buy this netgear wireless-N router:
Netgear WNR834B
Put on dd-wrt firmware:
DD-wrt how-to
Netgear firmware really really sucks, but with dd-wrt it would be better than the linksys in my opinion. It has a gigabit switch in it too - wayyyy better for NAS solutions than the linksys and it is wireless N
That netgear router has some terrible reliability issues if you check the customer reviews. 42% of people at Newegg give it 1 star.
Yeah, not the best option. Go with the linksys
I would consider myself and average user and I believe anyone who owns a router should know what QOS, MAC filtering, port forwarding, etc. are.
So, IMO, the average user could save the $15-$20 and get a 54g and flash the micro version on it. It does anything an "average" user should do.
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