Netgear recently launched the WGR614L wireless router targeted specifically at open source firmware enthusiasts. It can use Tomato, DD-WRT, and soon OpenWRT. The core is a 240MHz MIPS processor with 16MB of flash and 4MB of RAM. You’ll probably remember when Linksys decided to dump Linux from their iconic WRT54G line in favor of VxWorks; they released the similarly speced WRT54GL for enthusiasts. Netgear seems to be arriving pretty late in the game, but they’ve set up a community specifically for this router. Time will tell whether community support is enough to make this the router of choice for hackers. We wish someone would release an x86 based router in the same price range just to make porting stupidly simple.
[via Slashdot]
isn’t it more likely 16mb of ram and 4mb of flash?
Hey just a little head’s up: It’s 4MB Flash & 16MB RAM
*Though 16MB Flash would be natively killer…can’t say much about 4MB RAM in a to-be-hacked router ;)
Netgear is doing the same issue : too much RAM and Flash to be a really killer stuff. For 1/4 of that price you can buy a Fonera which have the same functions … and the same limited feature (due to lack of memory)
Bye
This is not an open source router. The wifi driver is closed source, binary only. The driver works with a linux-2.4.20 kernel only (yup, thats from year 2002). The result is that all the nice firewall functionality in the 2.6.xx series is not supported (eg. SIP NAT).
Someone needs to come up with a real opensource router with plenty of RAM and flash, and a reasonable wifi chip set with linux 2.6 drivers.
Please stop calling this an open source router.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813153096
Small size, check
low power, check
flash memory, after a CF card, check
open wireless, (depends on the card you plug in)
linux compatible, check
“….an x86 based router… to make porting stupidly simple.”, check
Meh. Bring back the WGT634U at this price point and open it up a hair more software wise. The WGT634U has 8MB flash, 32MB of RAM, and most importantly, a USB port. Though, it seems you can get NSLU2s for around this price-point already.
B10hazard, that is a novel little board, but it nearly $100 more expensive than the NetGear. How powerful is the LX chip compared to a standard desktop chip?
does not wall mount…important in some circles :-(
There is a really nice and decently active community site surrounding the new open source router at myopenrouter.com. I’ve been posting every now and then. They have some cool projects going on there.
You can find cheaper thin clients on parked towers for much cheaper and more functionality.