Linux-based Router part 3

Filed in archive Devices on January 4, 2007

And the saga continues...

After my failed OpenWRT installation attempt, I dreaded to think that I'd be forced to use the stock Linksys firmware. That won't happen without a fight! :)

So off to HyperWRT. Googling HyperWRT will give you several versions such as the original HyperWRT, HyperWRT Thibor and HyperWRT +tofu. Which one to choose?

Well, I randomly selected to check out HyperWRT +tofu (since I love tofu!). Unfortunately, this version is no longer being maintained and updated. Pity, huh? But wait, I found out that the same author created another firmware named tomato.

Intrigued, I downloaded and installed it. After the required reboot, I could no longer access the router. Argh! Did I brick it? Hope not. The rational thinker in me made me check out the documentation -- a hard reboot is needed. :) So, that is what I did.

After a series of flashing LEDs, the router came to life and lo and behold! It is working! Coolness! The bandwidth monitoring feature is built-in. No need to install MRTG on my Ubuntu box to check my bandwidth utilization. Unfortunately (or fortunately), my Safari browser (on my Mac) does not natively support SVG yet, which is necessary to display the graph (see the image). Good thing Firefox and Camino, a Mac browser based on the same rendering engine as Firefox, both support SVG natively.

So there you have it. My new Linux-based router firmware is called Tomato. Whilst I am still evaluating it (have not rebooted it yet), I am hoping that it will be more stable than the previous firmware.