Linksys router hacking

[blu at vl.com (Tom Metro)]

Bob George wrote:
> Many long-winded, ultimately uninteresting discussions can be had about 
> the GPL implications of sveasoft...

I haven't read any such discussions, though it did strike me as odd that 
you had to subscribe to their service in order to get the firmware. 
Apparently no free download - right? That's a different take on the 
typical open source model of making the software free and charging for 
support. And I suppose controversial as to whether it violates GPL.


> ...[use sveasoft] if you want a nice, featureful 
> device while maintaining the web-based GUI of the original linksys...
[...]
> At some point, you get beyond what can easily be done with the
> GUI, so I made the jump to OpenWRT accordingly. 

If sveasoft only maintains the original GUI and doesn't extend it to 
support the new features, then I don't see much point.

The big advantage I see to sveasoft is that you don't have to go through 
the pain of integrating the packages. Though if you don't happen to like 
the packages they bundle, you aren't much better off.

I'll probably give OpenWRT a try first, as it's free, and see if it can 
do what I want without a lot of effort.

I'm sure eventually someone will develop a free, routing-focused 
distribution for the platform that includes a GUI. Personally I'm fine 
without the GUI, but it'd be nice to have one if deploying one of these 
for clients.


> You have to make some fundamental configuration changes to remove the 
> wireless and internal switch ports from the default bridged 
> configuration...

Yeah, I've read about that.

So how long would you estimate it took you to get OpenWRT installed and 
the initial set of packages loaded and working? If it's a 6 or 8 hour 
job, the sveasoft subscription fee would be minor in comparison.

  -Tom