[svlug] SOHO router spiced up was: Sheevaplug ?

[Marco Walther]

On Thursday 22 October 2009 15:36, Ivan Sergio Borgonovo wrote:
> On Thu, 22 Oct 2009 14:40:58 -0700
>
> Marco Walther <marco at sonic.net> wrote:
> > for OpenWRT, ASUS boxes are still around work well for me;-)
> > http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833320011
>
> This belong to the list of "we pretend to be open" (actually not
> exactly...).
> You've to run 2.4 kernel because it is the only one containing a
> binary version for the wifi broadcom card. Plus it seems that
> currently n mode is unsupported.

Actually, the WL-500w comes supposedly with a mini-PCI WiFi card, which you 
could exchange for an Atheros based one with open drivers. I did not look, 
I'm happy as it is;-) I was more interested in the USB ports;-)


>
> I'm currently very happy of my wl500g (same problem as above but
> bought... at least 5 or 6 years ago).
> I bricked a wl500pv1 and now the v2 is unsupported.
>
> > You could also look at the ubnt.com access pointings/boards.
>
> They look nice but I can't see how much I'm going to pay to have
> something boxed and there is no reseller nearby.
>
> Now I really find hard to understand why it has to be so difficult
> to find a really open router that's supported.
> After all most of the work for most of the router by asus, dlink,
> netgear etc... has already be done.
> Even swapping one minipci card with another may (just may) increase
> the cost of the HW for the manufacturer 2 or 3% but with the
> advantage of exploiting a plethora of developers that really make
> shine that HW.

Most of those SOHO routers do not have mini-PCI cards any more. But even just 
swapping a mini-PCI board would also mean maintaining a new firmware image 
line forever. Remember, probably 99.99% of their users will rely on the stock 
firmware. 

Thanks,
-- Marco