The Ever Project

Linksys WRT54GL: Best Router for Home Networks

1 - I can do better 2 - Jury's out 3 - Pretty darn good 4 - Splendiferous 5 - Awesometastic (by 3 people)   Your rating: 1 - I can do better 2 - Jury's out 3 - Pretty darn good 4 - Splendiferous 5 - Awesometastic

Creating a Home Network

 Whether you want to share your internet connection with someone, block or restrict p2p downloads, use wireless internet anywhere from your home, or filter unwanted content for several PCs, you will need a good router solution. I have been using WRT54GL from Linksys for a while, and I highly recommend it to anyone who needs a cheap and powerful router for their network. It's capable of doing all the things I mentioned, and more.

The Top Five Reasons WRT54GL is the Best Router 

  • It has both Wireless Access Point (802.11g at 54Mbps and 802.11b at 11Mbps) and a 4 port Ethernet full-duplex 10/100 switch for your wired devices.
  • Since WRT54GL's firmware is open source (Linux based), there are a lot of third party firmware projects, which can turn your cheap home router into something as powerful as commercial devices.
  • Linksys WRT54GL is relatively cheap - you won't go broke trying to build your home network, and it packs a lot of features for that price.
  • It is very stable, and it's 200 MHz processor is powerful enough for most home networks - as many happy users can testify.
  • WRT54GL's neat design and low power consumption is a huge improvement over using a regular PC for routing.

Buy a WRT54GL from Amazon 

If you don't believe me when I say it's the best router, just read the reviews!

Linksys-Cisco WRT54GL Wireless-G Broadband Router (Compatible with Linux)

Linksys-Cisco WRT54GL Wireless-G Broadband Router (Compatible with Linux)

Amazon Price: $61.99 (as of 07/04/2008)

There are several reasons why this router is so well rated. It's stable and powerful, you can greatly enhance it using third party firmware, and it's pretty cheap, too.

Avg. Customer Rating: Amazon Rating

Custom firmware for WRT54GL 

Default firmware that you get on your router works pretty well, but there's a problem with peer-to-peer programs because they use a lot of connections. The maximum connections number in default firmware is set pretty low and cannot be changed. Pretty much any third party firmware lets you change it. I highly recommend Tomato firmware - or, if you want something extremely simple, try Tarifa. If you need more information, see router firmware reviews.

#1

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Tomato

Highly recommended firmware which takes QoS configuration to the next level. When it comes to setting up traffic priorities, Tomato can do almost anyt...1 point

#2

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Thibor's HyperWRT

Firmware which is based on the original one from Linksys. Adds many new features. Basically, an upgrade from the original one.1 point

#3

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DD-WRT

Popular firmware that is based on OpenWRT kernel rather than Linksys software. Has many features, especially useful for wireless users. From my experi...0 points

#4

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OpenWRT

A firmware meant for advanced users, which has a great QoS implementation. It used to have only a command shell, but now some people created X-WRT, a...0 points

#5

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Tarifa

The world's largest development and download repository of Open Source code and applications0 points

Comments 

poddys

Chadrew, Yes it's possible to network multiple computers through the router, you just need to right click on the folders (My Documents?) that you want to share, activate the sharing opton and then you should see the other computer on your network.
It's not quite that easy, you need to go into the network options and set up sharing first, but it's really very simple.
There are plenty of places to find a lot of detailed info if you go into Google and search.
Hope you get it set up ok.

John, nice lens. This is a great router and available at a good price too.

Posted March 19, 2008
Chadrew

Hello John,
Yes, it's definitely possible (although I haven't tried it with a wireless connection personally) and no additional hardware is needed. Just make sure you enable File Sharing on both computers. If you run into any trouble, linksysinfo.org forums are quite helpful.

Posted March 09, 2008
John

I've gotten a 'G' wireless router myself, with four ports for ethernet and a wifi. My desktop's ethernetted in one of the ports, and my laptop's using the WiFi, both no problem on the internet.

Is it possible to network the desktop and laptop through this hardware to access each other, or is more equipment necessary?

Posted March 09, 2008