which midpriced routers accept opensource OS

> The WRT54* series which was the "standard" answer some days ago might
> not be the best choice these days, even if it is good in itself.

I wanted to write "years" ago, sorry for the typo.

--
DW

> They seem to have some downtime these days. The links you could not
> follow are interesting because they deal with your initial question
> about choosing the router itself. So I suggest you retry in a day or
> two if you are not in a hurry.

The OpenWRT sites seem to be back right now, I hope this will be stable
again so the links given initially can be browsed through.


Best,
--
DW

Damien Wyart <(E-Mail Removed)> writes:

>> They seem to have some downtime these days. The links you could not
>> follow are interesting because they deal with your initial question
>> about choosing the router itself. So I suggest you retry in a day or
>> two if you are not in a hurry.
>
> The OpenWRT sites seem to be back right now, I hope this will be stable
> again so the links given initially can be browsed through.

I still cannot get to them, but I have noticed my connection is not
that wonderful in other places too, so it may not be a general thing.

Damien Wyart <(E-Mail Removed)> writes:

> This is mainly related to the wiki nature of the documentation: people
> who had very specific (and rare) problems will write them down to help
> others; people getting things working directly will just enjoy... The
> warnings on the page are related to very specific problems which do not
> affect normal users.

Point taken, thanks for making that clear and reporting your
experiences flashing and so forth.

I'm not really sure what to expect with the kind of setup you
describe.

Does one run their own iptables setup or is the openwrt a sort of
frontend to that?

I've not really found a comprehensive overview of what openwrt is
supposed to do that leaves one feeling they know what the software
does.

I currently cannot resolve the home page to reread the overview but I
don't recall feeling very satisfied with the overview having explained
what it's was all about.

* Harry Putnam <(E-Mail Removed)> in comp.os.linux.networking:
> Does one run their own iptables setup or is the openwrt a sort of
> frontend to that?

There is a default iptables setup when you install OpenWRT, and it just
works for standard use of a home router. Manual tuning is only for
special needs like IPv6 or defining multiple zones on your network, or
doing port forwarding.

> I've not really found a comprehensive overview of what openwrt is
> supposed to do that leaves one feeling they know what the software
> does.

OpenWRT is a linux distribution targeted at home wifi routers, coming
with a GUI named Luci and a reasonable set of default settings.

--
DW

> I've not really found a comprehensive overview of what openwrt is
> supposed to do that leaves one feeling they know what the
> software does.

FWIW, I recommend OpenWRT if you care about your freedom.
Most alternatives seem to care less about freedom (are more willing to
include proprietary bits) and don't make tinkering as easy.

OpenWRT is not perfect by a long stretch (their story for upgrading the
firmware without having to redo the config is fairly weak), but it
really gives you a lot of flexibility (by being able to very easily (tho
it takes significant CPU time and disk space) build a customized
firmware) while providing a fairly clean and simple default with a GUI
that's good enough to cover the typical needs. So you can start as
a "dumb user" which just downloads a prebuilt firmware, then later on
decide to add some prebuilt packages from some archive somewhere, and
yet later on build your own firmwares and packages. The steps between
these are surprisingly small.


Stefan

* Stefan Monnier <(E-Mail Removed)> in comp.os.linux.networking:
> OpenWRT is not perfect by a long stretch (their story for upgrading
> the firmware without having to redo the config is fairly weak), [...]

With recent versions, sysupgrade works very well: the only required
additional step is reinstalling the packages and enabling previously
enabled services. I've tested it a few times and it worked well.

http://wiki.openwrt.org/doc/howto/generic.sysupgrade

--
DW

Damien Wyart <(E-Mail Removed)> writes:

> Here is some suggested reading:
>
> http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/buyerguide

That guide appears singularly useless. There is no guide involved. I
wonder why it is called a buyers guide. And am startled to see
posters in the thread rave about it.

What am I missing there?