For a while I was a fan of DD-WRT. Even aside from some of the points
another member brought up about the open source issues. I even recently
bought a Buffalo WZR-HP-G300H[1] wireless router for ~$70[2][3] that
came preloaded with DD-WRT. At first I was some what pleased that I
would not have to deal with that, could just put it to use.
However I quickly ran into a situation where DD-WRT was just no longer a
good fit for my uses. Like for use with VOIP and SIP connections, DD-WRT
is missing the crucial kernel modules necessary for that,
nf_conntrack_sip and nf_nat_sip. Not to mention I wasn't to keen that
DD-WRT is still using and shipping a 2.4 kernel. Not to mention got
tired of hacking in stuff for openvpn and firewall rules.
After dialing in the preloaded DD-WRT on the Buffalo WZR-HP-G300H to the
point where I ran into issues with VOIP and SIP connections. I just bit
the bullet and put openwrt on the router. Now I bought the router
specifically to put openwrt on it. It went through the entire
recommended hardware list[4]. Looking for the one with the best specs,
and just so happens to also be one of the most recommended units, for
easy of install and pretty impossible to brick. There is a page specific
to the unit on the openwrt wiki[5].
Now I did run into one problem that took me a few hours to figure out. I
was flashing backfire images for the WZR-HP-G300H. However it turns out
I have a WZR-HP-G301H, which has a different switch and requires a
different driver for that. I ended up flashing the WZR-HP-G301H from
trunk and things worked beautifully from there. Its misleading because
the box and package says its a WZR-HP-G300H but clearly its not :)
I am quite impressed with openwrt all around. Its much more of what I
would expect. Things like openvpn integration and usage is considerably
less hacky. You can actually create and store real config files and do
things as you would normally on other distros/systems. Also its much
easier to integrate custom firewall rules and stuff. I went with LuCI
for the gui, but doing allot of stuff via command line. I just like some
of the stats and stuff via the gui.
End of the day I am no longer a fan of DD-WRT and I really recommend
avoiding it and using openwrt. Or maybe one of the other wireless
distros, Tomato, etc. Though openwrt supports more devices than just
about anything else.
1.
http://www.buffalo-technology.com/products/wireless/wireless-n-nfiniti/wzr-hp-g300nh-airstation-nfiniti-wireless-n-high-power-router/
2.
http://www.amazon.com/Buffalo-Technology-AirStation-Wireless-WZR-HP-G300NH/dp/B0028ACYEK
3. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833162031
4. http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/start#supported.hardware.-.router.type
5. http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/buffalo/wzr-hp-g300h
--
William L. Thomson Jr.
Obsidian-Studios, Inc.
http://www.obsidian-studios.com
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