Teach Your Router New Tricks With DD-WRT 257
snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Serdar Yegulalp offers an in-depth look at DD-WRT, open source router firmware that can 'breath new life — and advanced features — into your old wired or wireless router.' Quality-of-service controls, iptables-based firewall, IPv6 support, DNS controls, Kai Daemon for allowing game console network tunneling, and a host of features for using your router as a public-access hotspot are among the many possibilities for hacking your router with DD-WRT."
Where did this article come from? (Score:4, Interesting)
Leave it to InfoWeek to be both completely confused and 5 years behind the times.
To wit, this article [lifehacker.com] with the same premise from Lifehacker in 2006. And that was before DD-WRT sucked.
First, the author's router is not "an old router". In fact, it ships with DD-WRT. Take an old WRT-54G 1.0 and stick DD-WRT and that would be breathing life into an old router. All you're doing here is using a Buffalo-preconfigured (and encrypted, closed-source) version of DD-WRT.
But more to the point...DD-WRT? Ick. If you want QoS (as the author seems to), you need pay for the commercial version. The QoS in the free version is known broken and has been for quite a while, and there is little motivation to fix it. Also, old routers cannot use the QoS, because you need 4MB or bigger flash. Maybe it works in newer routers but who cares - there are plenty of better alternatives to DD-WRT.
Finally, for Slashdotters, let me say two words that will have you running screaming from DD-WRT: software activation.
Tomato is a fine, free (in all senses) alternative, and I personally love the Tomato-USB [tomatousb.org] version.