DD-WRT to OpenWRT: Success! In 30mins!

[Feathers McGraw]

I've been running DD-WRT for the last few months on my TP-Link TL-WDR3600. On the whole it was pretty good, but I was annoyed by how difficult it was to install extra packages. I managed to do it, but was using OpenWRT's opkg, so though I might as well go the whole hog and just use OpenWRT and have done with it!

Also, SSH was broken on the build I was using so I had to Telnet everything.

So, I decided to try OpenWRT. I reverted to stock firmware using DD-WRT's web GUI, and then flashed OpenWRT from the stock firmware.

Couldn't have been easier, a 5 year old could have done it.

Total time: 30mins, including the time it took to connect to the modem and open a few ports for the services I have running behind the router.

SSH works.
The WebGUI isn't quite as pretty but has many more options.

Happy Chap.

Feathers

[GreyGeek]

Interesting!

About a year and a half ago I purchased a new wireless to get IPv6 capability. It is a Cisco E2500. I was surprised at how restrictive its management web pages were. I could barely do anything to control the device. No change of the transmitter power was a big one. I decided I could live with it .... until I got a popup from Cisco (not an email!) stating that in order to have the firmware update installed I had to agree to open a Cicso cloud account. I declined the request and the update.

If Cisco hadn't been greedy and just installed it in the background I would never have known. I googled to see what the story was and found out that the major reason for the firmware upgrade was to install backdoors in the wireless router! Several years ago the NSA and other gov agencies began snooping on "foreign" citizens and governments, but this Cisco thing two years ago pointed out that they were snooping on Americans as well. Such activity is a known violation of several laws but, apparently, not "secret" laws that Congress snuck in.

That did it for me. I burned the DD-WRT firmware that day onto the E2500. I was surprised to discover that it opened up the entire device to my control. The web pages were much more professionally done and much easier to use.

With so many disconnect problems I began wondering if attempts to break in through the Windstream wireless modem/cable box could be part of the problem. That's one reason why I decided to switch to Earthlink so I could use the E2500 again. Since 12PM noon last Friday, when the Earthlink service was connected, I have not had a single connection loss that required I run "sudo service networkmanager restart".

I still get an occasional screen freeze, but the keyboard and mouse work. Also, any applications that I have open continue to work. What doesn't work is the control panel and KMenu. I use Alt+F2 to open a commandline and start ksystemguard. I right mouse on the "plasma-desktop" service and send it an "INT" command. The control panel becomes active and any past clicks on it while it was frozen start up immediately. I still haven't figured out this problem. I've tried several kernels and am currently running the
3.4.0-030400-generic #201205210521 SMP Mon May 21 09:22:02 UTC 2012 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
kernel. I also upgraded from the KDE 4.5.8 to the KDE 4.11.2 desktop, but that hasn't helped. It's just a nuisance though, not a show stopper. IF it happened too often I'd be forced to consider other alternatives. BTW, that plasma-desktop freeze seems to be a problem on ALL of the versions of Kubuntu since 12.04, and on several other distros running KDE, like Mint. I think it is related to my HD4000 Itel video because of these lines in the kernel log:

$ dmesg | grep MUX
[ 1.380095] [drm:intel_dsm_platform_mux_info] *ERROR* MUX INFO call failed
[ 1.380118] [drm:intel_dsm_platform_mux_info] *ERROR* MUX INFO call failed
$

but I haven't found a fix for it yet. Some who report those lines in their kernel log also report a complete lockup of the screen, keyboard and mouse.

[charles052]

I got a westell 7500. I wonder if I could do that to it as well?

[Feathers McGraw]

Charles,

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like it.

Same for DD-WRT.

Just looked up the specs and the Westell 7500 is a modem & router, both DD-WRT and OpenWrt are for routers only. If you wanted to, you could put the Westell into modem mode and connect it to a router of your choice running *Wrt.

Feathers