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Sargent Duck
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Buying a new wireless router, what firmware (tomatoe, dd-wrt

Fri Jul 29, 2011 7:06 am

So, my computer is currently hard wired in, but I have a roommate moving in over the weekend, so I need to get a wireless router. I've had my eye on the Asus RT-N16 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6833320038) for 2 reasons. It comes with 2 USB ports, so I can hook up both my networkable printer and my external hdd (or, if my printer doesn't work, my roommate has an external hdd we can hook up as well). I've heard the firmware for the Asus is pretty rubbish, so I plan on flashing to dd-wrt as soon as I get it.

But I've heard people talking about other ones as well other than dd-wrt, such as tomatoe, open-wrt and so on. Which is the best?

I'm going for ease of use as number #1 feature
Second is being able to use bittorrent and have it write to my attached hdd.
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clocks
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Re: Buying a new wireless router, what firmware (tomatoe, dd

Fri Jul 29, 2011 7:32 am

I've used Tomato for years, and have been happy. I have looked at dd-wrt, but it seems a little more complex to install. For my router there are like 10 different builds to choose from. I just found Tomato easier to setup.
 
etana
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Re: Buying a new wireless router, what firmware (tomatoe, dd

Fri Jul 29, 2011 7:50 am

I'm using Tomatousb on that router. Haven't tried sharing printers, but the HD sharing works ok. It is DLNA compliant but a little slow. Love it apart from that. More reliable than my old Linksys.
 
bthylafh
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Re: Buying a new wireless router, what firmware (tomatoe, dd

Fri Jul 29, 2011 8:23 am

I went with Tomato because it has a reputation for a friendlier UI and all the features work, which isn't necessarily the case with DD-WRT. Have been mostly satisfied with it; about the only thing it lacks that I'd like is IPv6 support and perhaps OpenVPN, but it might not be possible to stick all that in 4MB of flash like my WRT54GL has.

I believe Tomato-USB (which you'd want to use - the base version doesn't support USB) does IPv6, so there's that.
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RickyTick
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Re: Buying a new wireless router, what firmware (tomatoe, dd

Fri Jul 29, 2011 8:53 am

bthylafh wrote:
I believe Tomato-USB (which you'd want to use - the base version doesn't support USB) does IPv6, so there's that.


QFT. About the only thing tomato-usb doesn't do is support the 5 Ghz channel.
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Flatland_Spider
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Re: Buying a new wireless router, what firmware (tomatoe, dd

Fri Jul 29, 2011 9:01 am

Tomato is really nice. I've been running it on my WRT54GL for years now, and I have no complaints. OpenVPN support would be really nice, so I can close the ports I have open for remote access.

The Buffalo WZR-HP-AG300H has DD-WRT installed from the factory.
 
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Re: Buying a new wireless router, what firmware (tomatoe, dd

Fri Jul 29, 2011 9:09 am

I've been using dd-wrt on my WRT54GL and then on my current WRT320N for several years. 320N took a while to install but has been working smoothly. Basically once you install and configure these you can just forget about them which is the way I like it.
 
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Re: Buying a new wireless router, what firmware (tomatoe, dd

Fri Jul 29, 2011 9:56 am

I've been using DD-Wrt on my Linksys WRT54G for about 4 years, without any major problems. One thing though, Ocassionally when I have to change something in it, I have to toggle back and forth a few times between the differant screen profile or all the info isn't shown on the screen. It's not much of a problem and with 10 versions out there for that router, i may have a beta or something. It works well enough I have no functional complaints..
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Sargent Duck
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Re: Buying a new wireless router, what firmware (tomatoe, dd

Fri Jul 29, 2011 10:11 am

Thanks guys.

Think I'll go with Tomato-USB. I'm a Windows Brat through and through, so "easy set-up" = win in my books.
No matter how bad the new homepage sucks or how bungled the new management is...

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Hallucin8
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Re: Buying a new wireless router, what firmware (tomatoe, dd

Fri Jul 29, 2011 10:25 am

Sargent Duck wrote:
Thanks guys.

Think I'll go with Tomato-USB. I'm a Windows Brat through and through, so "easy set-up" = win in my books.

DD-WRT is easy to setup and get going. It just has a LOT more options to do other stuff you probably never considered. I'd go that route in a heartbeat.

This is what I see/remember installing it on.

10+ WRT54g
1x WRT54gl
3x WRT160n rev1 (i think)
3x WRT310n rev1
2x WRT310n rev2
1x WRT320n

I'm not affiliated with them in any way other then i'm a fan of the stability, and maybe tomato does fix that too but i haven't needed to try it.
 
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Re: Buying a new wireless router, what firmware (tomatoe, dd

Fri Jul 29, 2011 11:58 am

RickyTick wrote:
bthylafh wrote:
I believe Tomato-USB (which you'd want to use - the base version doesn't support USB) does IPv6, so there's that.


QFT. About the only thing tomato-usb doesn't do is support the 5 Ghz channel.


QFT x 2. I use TomatoUSB on a Netgear router. Works utterly flawlessly.
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Re: Buying a new wireless router, what firmware (tomatoe, dd

Fri Jul 29, 2011 12:04 pm

Tomato has been dead-on reliable since I slapped on my WRT54GL. For those who might need large routing tables for some odd reason, I can vouch for Tomato.
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