[MLB-WIRELESS] OpenWRT precompiled firmware

[Dan Flett]

Hi All,

It's not very well advertised, but OpenWRT now have precompiled .bin
files of their WRT54G firmware available on their website here:

http://www.openwrt.org/downloads/snapshots/

Open up the .tar.bz2 archive and you'll find them inside, along with a
pile of add-on ipkg software packages.  For those of you on Windows you
can get a free (trial) archive manager that can handle .tar.bz2 files at
download.com or zdnet.com.au.  I've been using PowerArchiver, but of
course, Linux 'tar' handles .tar.bz2 natively. :)

I highly recommend OpenWRT to anyone who is comfortable with the Linux
command line.  The Linksys and Sveasoft firmwares are completely
read-only, except for the NVRAM variables.  The OpenWRT firmware takes
up 2Mb of flash memory and formats the rest as a read/write JFFS2
partition.  This gives you 2Mb on the WRT54G and 6Mb on the WRT54GS in
which you can install software packages.  OpenWRT uses IPKG as its
software management system and it's very similar to Debian's APT.  So
instead of messing around with NVRAM variables, you can actually edit
config files like in a real distro.

Currently there is work going on to create a web interface for it, which
promised to be able to handle package management in a GUI environment.
It will be modular so if you add a package, you could possibly also add
a web interface for that package.

I see the race between OpenWRT and Sveasoft as a tortoise and hare type
of race.  Sveasoft is quickly adding features but they are buggy.
Sveasoft is also alienating a lot of potential developers with their
stance on the GPL.  OpenWRT, whilst proceeding slowly at the moment,
offers a much friendlier development environment, both from a GPL
standpoint and from an operating system that is more familiar to Linux
developers.

Having precompiled firmware available and a web interface will serve to
make OpenWRT much more accessible, and hopefully in turn more people
will want to develop for it, or at least port packages for it.

Cheers,

Dan

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