WTR45GS Finally Has Useful Firmware
A while ago, I had purchased a Linksys WTR54GS as a travel companion. It is a fairly serviceable router that slides into a nice little compact carrying case complete with an Ethernet cable to jack in a computer or to something else.
The main problem I had with the device? The firmware–something Linksys never bothered to update beyond the initial shipping version. The router’s web interface was slow and frequently had issues. A problem with nearly every Linksys router since they switched to using VxWorks instead of Linux
Leave it to the fine folks being DD-WRT for figuring out how to liberate this device from a life of running VXWorks. I followed the rather convoluted steps for getting DD-WRT onto the router. One small hitch I ran into was that the referenced Sercomm utility crashes under XP. However, a quick Google search resulted in finding an update to Sercomm that would make it run under XP.
About 10 minutes later, I had removed the crappy VxWorks-based firmware and had the latest DD-WRT up and running in no-time. The web interface was nice and peppy. All the functionality of DD-WRT is now in my travel bag, ready to convert WiFi to Ethernet or vice-versa.
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Related Posts: Tags: dd-wrt, linksys, wtr54gs Fnord
Comment by Mark Guim
What a coincidence @phoneboy! The new apartment I’m in, the router is in the living room but signal is very low once it reached my bedroom. Last night, I installed the v24 dd-wrt firmware that came with “repeater bridge” mode on a second router so I can connect wireless and wired devices and still be in the same network as the other devices connected to the router in the bedroom on the other side of the apartment.
NO MORE intermittent connection. Works great.
Comment by PhoneBoy
The reason I did the WDS mesh was to extend the Wifi signal throughout my house in addition to allowing my wife’s desktop and printer to connect. The third Linksys router (a WRT54G) is simply a WiFi client that’s bridged into the rest of the network.
Comment by Angels
“The router’s web interface was slow and frequently had issues. A problem with nearly every Linksys router since they switched to using VxWorks instead of Linux” - I had the same problem. Thanks for sharing the info.