Tomato Firmware: Best for WRT54GL Router By far, the best firmware I have tried.

Tomato is based on Linksys' source code, but it is heavily modified, optimized, and equipped with a completely new sleek web interface. That interface is worth a praise: it's easy to use, simple to understand, and very responsive because of that cool thing called AJAX (no need to refresh the whole page to see the changes).

Tomato has something other firmwares don't - a bandwidth monitor which can draw neat looking charts. I was afraid at first that it would require a lot of CPU power, but it actually seems that Tomato uses even less CPU than other software! The bandwidth monitor can show internet usage real-time, or even log it to router's memory.

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Linksys WRT54G DD-WRT

While HyperWRT is just an improved version of default firmware, DD-WRT is written from scracth (based on OpenWrt Kernel). It has a different web interface and so many advanced features it made my head spin.

First of all, it has all the features I found handy in HyperWRT, and more. Not only you can increase connections limit, you can also monitor the number of connections on the router's web interface to make sure it doesn't reach the maximum. Overclocking can be done from a handy drop-down menu. It has the wireless signal boost as well. QoS L7 filter application list is even longer, and there's also "Optimize for gaming" setting like in original Linksys firmware. The only immediate complaint I had was that this firmware rebooted the router after every little change I made in the settings.

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HyperWRT (Thibor) Firmware This firmware is based on original one with added features.

Note: while this firmware is working and functional, it is no longer being updated. You might want to choose another one unless there's a specific reason that you want to use HyperWRT for.

HyperWRT "Thibor" firmware is based on the source of default one from Linksys, but it has many more features, such as adjusting of wireless transmitting power (in other words, boosting the signal strenght), increased port forwarding and QoS application fields, command shell, startup and firewall scripts, and more.

Since it's based on default Linksys WRT54GL firmware, it even uses the same web interface, which is easy to understand and use. It's an "upgrade" from default firmware in many ways.

The first thing I noticed is that it solved Azureus problem immediately. By default, it sets the connection limit to 2048, and that can be increased even further.

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Default Linksys WRT54GL Firmware The first one I tested.

The first firmware I tested was of course the default one from Linksys. Naturally, it was already installed on the router - I'm providing a link in case you want to overwrite your alternative firmware back to original one.

After you connect to the router (default IP is 192.168.1.1), you can configure the settings. The web interface is simple and easy.

First thing I did was disable wireless, since I don't need it at all (glad the software had this option).

Next, I decided to test the QoS. Instead of adding the game manually, I simply checked "Optimize of gaming" and asked my neighbor to start his downloading. The game I tested was Counter-Strike Source (CSS, for short). I usually get 5 latency if no one else is using the line; I used to get around 500 or more when my neighbor was downloading something. With QoS optimized for gaming, it's around 40, and ping stays low - right on! Note, it's still not the same as with "empty" connection, but I was unable to get any better latency no matter which QoS settings I tried.

Then I setup the port forwarding for my applications which need it. It all worked nicely, except you can quickly run out of port forwarding fields and QoS fields - they are limited in this version of firmware.

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Using WRT54G Router for Home Networking My experience of using this device.

I am currently sharing 4096/1024 kbps cable internet connection with my neighbor. We used to share the line through a simple switch, but whenever one of us were using P2P programs, downloading bigger files, or even watching streaming video from Youtube, it would lag the connection, which made for a bad gaming or VoIP experience. Bandwidth limiting on each PC wasn't an option since the limit would stay even if the other PC stopped using the connection.

The solution was buying a router with a QoS (Quality of Service) capability. Basically, QoS is about setting priorities for different types of traffic, or "traffic shaping". Thankfully, there are plenty of cheap routers nowadays which can do QoS like very expensive commercial products, although on a smaller scale and not so effectively. Still, it works just fine for something like prioritizing game or voice communication traffic and preventing your annoying roommate from using all the bandwidth.

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WRT54GL Firmware Reviews

About Linksys WRT54G Series

With a router from this series, you can share a broadband internet connection using both wired and wireless links. WRT54GL is a great little device with low power consumption, a powerful 200 MHz processor (you can overclock it, too) and 16 MB memory.

WRT54G can run Linux and is the first cheap home router in history which firmware source code was released to the public. As a result, several third party firmware projects were started, which improve router's functionality greatly and brings it closer to capabilities of expensive commercial networking equipment. I have personally tested several of these firmwares on my WRT54GL router, and you can find their short reviews below.

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