Cisco-Linksys WRT54G Wireless-G Router by Linksys
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Digital camera reviews of Cisco-Linksys WRT54G Wireless-G Router
Digital camera Review: A Solid Wireless Router
Summary: 5 Stars
Have it up and running for over a month. Very stable both on LAN and WLAN. Its wireless coverage is very good throughout my house and decent even at the back yard. It replaced my old D-link 802.11b wireless router that is also good on the lan port but the wireless coverage is pretty bad.
I just went to IE based configuration to set it up and ignored the installation CD. Need to flash it to most recent firmware version (v8.00.5) though to make it stable.
Digital camera Review: A big step backwards
Summary: 1 Stars
I bought this unit to replace an aging Microsoft Home Networking wireless router (802.11b). Much to my surprise, the wired connection was about 10% slower with the Linksys unit installed. The wireless connection was slightly slower (about 5%) and the range was only slightly better than the old unit. Given all the above, back it goes to Amazon.Digital camera Review: A consumer level product.
Summary: 3 Stars
Here is the big news to everyone; this is a consumer level product. This is not an enterprise piece of hardware that you will find in an office or corporate environment. You will not be able to run 100's users using WPA and WPA2 encryption through this thing, just a handful of people on a cable modem or DSL line. People that complain about this product not standing up to hardcore use are fooling themselves. They need to step up and buy an enterprise level piece of hardware for a lot more money.
That aside, this is not that bad of a product. I have had mine for about a year and use a third party firmware on mine and love it. With a little knowledge and tweaking, you can get this product to run encrypted wireless connections to about 10 people with little or no problem. If you have users that use P2P, you will need to tweak this and all wireless routers. P2P is just harsh on networking equipment of all kinds.
On the subject of Third Party firmware; Linksys WRT54G versions 1 through 4 run Linux. Because of that, a bunch of really smart people sat down and figured out how to make the Linksys WRT54G run their own custom firmware. So, if you type in "Linksys firmware" into Google or A9, you will get a list of websites that have custom firmware for various kinds of Linksys Routers (Linksys makes a few routers that run Linux). The really neat thing about this is that the third party firmware are very powerful and add many more features to the WRT54G that are not there, but should be. However, the version of the WRT54G that Amazon.com and most other places sell is version 5. The new hardware version does not run Linux at all and most likely will not since the memory has been cut in half. Simply put, the hardware is just too small to run Linux, which is a really bummer since I found it fun to play with my Linksys WRT54G's firmware.
However, if you are not a tech person and just want a wireless router for home or your very small business, you can just get a WRT54G from here and configure it. Just make sure to get someone to help you configure the encryption if you can not do it yourself. Do not use this thing without Wireless Encryption. All wireless routers need to be configured to use Wireless Encryption, so this is just not a problem with the WRT54G.
If you are a tech person and want to really play with your WRT54G, sorry, but you need to get the WRT54GS router. They have the large amounts of RAM and still run Linux. I would highly recommend that you do this if you want to learn something, but if you are not interested in learning this stuff and just want a working wireless router, just get the WRT54G.
Digital camera Review: A difficult problem with this router...
Summary: 3 Stars
I have had many years of experience in home/corporate networking. I have found that this particular router had some unresolvable issues. I updated the router with the latest firmware. According to linksys there are no hardware issues with my router.
For my current setup I have one Macbook and 3 Desktop PC's. I use my main router on one of my desktop PC's. The problem occurs when I use my Macbook to connect to the internet. Once connected, the router stops all internet activity. This happens every single time, the only way to resolve the issue is to manually reset the router every time. The airport card in the Macbook is compatible with this router according to the requirements. I've contacted apple and linksys for support and both attempts have been unsuccessful in trying to resolve this issue.
Please advise.
Digital camera Review: A do everything box - not just a wireless AP!
Summary: 5 Stars
This must be one of the most versatile computer products on the planet. The WRT54G as a wireless router alone is quite good and comes with cutting edge security options (WEP, TKIP, RADIUS, etc) and supports all "b" and "g" wireless equipment. But with enhanced firmware from 3rd parties the WRT is an absolute powerhouse. My favorite is from Sveasoft. The WRT54G with this new firmware is now my firewall, bandwidth manager, wireless router, four-port Ethernet hub, VPN server, and has so many more features I can't count them. I can even link multiple WRT's and extend coverage all over the house and yard. Truly amazing!
I highly recommend this product.