[vox-tech] Router annoyances (again!)

[Ken Bloom]

On Sun, 2009-10-04 at 11:51 -0700, Bill Kendrick wrote:
> Ok, we've got the following:
> 
>   * Netgear WRT54G v.8 wireless router
>   * Zoom DSL modem
> 
> with the following attached:
> 
>   * Brother laser printer [wired]
>   * Dell 1525 laptop [wifi]
>   * Roku Netflix player [wifi]
>   * IBM X41 laptop [wifi]
> 
> 
> Every once in a while, it just becomes impossible to get on the network,
> and the damned router needs to be rebooted.  It happened this morning while
> I was using my Dell, and Roku was playing a movie.  My wife unsuspended
> her X41 started using it, and moments later, all three lost network.

Routers can be finicky, and frequently require magic incantations to
make the internet work.

> Any ideas?  Some friends suggested they could reflash the router with
> something called "Tomato", but Melissa looked into it, and apparently our
> router is too new (version 8), and is not supported.

Your router is a WRT54G, and most of those support customized Linux
firmware in some way or another. Tomoto is just one such distribution.
I looked on the site for dd-wrt (http://dd-wrt.com/ another such
distribution) and your router is supported, but there are special
instructions
http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php?title=How_To_Flash_the_WRT54Gv8&oldid=26725 (the wiki page is currently vandalized, and I don't have a login to fix it, so you have to go to the history, which is what I've linked you to. Maybe, you'll fix it?)

You could even follow the VxWorks killer instructions and then install
tomato if that's what you like, but I happen to like dd-wrt.

When you install a Linux distro on it, you'll be switching from VxWorks
to Linux, which should help things. I haven't had a problem with dd-wrt.
In fact, I'm sending this right now with a dd-wrt router configured as a
repeater, talking to another dd-wrt router configured as a NAT gateway.

> The router is not _that_ old, and was something we got to replace a
> non-wifi-router + WAP setup we had before, which was also infuriatingly
> unreliable.  However, it's been a hot summer, and I think hardware is far
> less robust these days -- to say nothing about how crappy software seems
> to be getting. ;)  So I'm not beyond saying "it's broken, get a new one."
> In that case -- what can I get?

It's probably a software bug. Use a Linux router and you'll be fine.
Your router can run Linux.

--Ken

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