Episode 71 - Free $500 Router Upgrade (For your junk $50 Router!) [Discussion]

[serafina]

Your router gets a major upgrade with the free Tomato Firmware: monitor bandwidth consumption, boost your WiFi signal, make major QoS tweaks, track the results with shiny graphics... and more!

Download the episode here

[darkknight512]

LOL... I just bought a WRT54GL 4 hours ago (2 hours before this ep came out lol) and installed DD-WRT on it, so far I'm lovin it, hopefully this ep will teach me how to setup the QoS because I half get it.

[jdhore]

I'm surprised how little discussion or how little explanation there was about the QoS...That was one of the features you guys said Tomato had over DD-WRT and you didn't explain it at all I think there should either be a full episode or a small segment on an appropriate episode (another router segment or a m0n0wall/smoothwall episode) on how to setup QoS.

I only suggest this because a lot of people nowadays are using Hulu and Netflix streaming and AppleTV and VOIP and if i'm torrenting, i want my VOIP calls to be clear...Or other similar stuff...This was also discussed a little bit in that one episode of Tekzilla, but that was just basically saying: "Look at the QoS settings in your router".

BTW, awesome outtakes...lol :P

Funny outakes, hot Swedish intern that knows how to open a beer for the win.
She seems to do well on camera.

"Systm" viewers are hopefully pretty advanced, and I would have liked to see more explanation of some of the advanced features of tomato, or perhaps an alternative. I'm going to flash my router after I hit "Submit Reply", however. So, Good work!

[jimcavoli]

I noticed when Pat was flipping through the site survey that someone in the edit room tried to be courteous and blurred out the MAC address column. Right about 12:49, however, the view behind the blurry rectangle jumps back and one notable MAC is visible beneath the blur:
00:1E:52:7A:10:A7
SSID? R3, of course.
So you guys have an AirPort of some sort running your wifi?
Not terribly useful info, but sort of funny.

[hbeierg]

i recently tried to do this with DD-WRT to a WRT54G router without successes and just ended up resetting the router but ever sins then everything has been in Spanish which i cannot read. anyone have a solution to my problem?

[perditio44]

Back in mid-August, I decided to upgrade my router's firmware. At first, I wanted to go with DD-WRT, but after some research, I decided there was too much work and too much risk. So I went with Tomato instead. I haven't really had any problems with it, and the bandwidth monitor is great. Also, you can change the theme or use your own CSS if you like (takes some work to get it on there tho).

The only problem I have had was about a week or two ago, I found that my cable modem had the upstream and downstream lights flashing. I called my ISP and they said they had a problem handshaking with my router, but it was a quick 2 minute fix and I was back on. I highly recommend the Tomato firmware for quick and easy installation and fair ease of use.

Edit: My router is the Linksys WRT54GS v4

[davmoo]

Great episode! The only thing I could question would be, like a previous poster said, QoS was rather glossed over.

I ran DD-WRT for about a year. For what it is, it was great. But every time I tried to add modules for extra functionality to it (like bandwidth monitoring), failure was the only real result.

Tomato, on the other hand, may not look as polished, but it has *far* more functionality built in. It just works. And thanks to Tomato, I know that I've thus far soaked up 99.74GB of bandwidth during the month of September.

I am, however, *very seriously* worried about David. In the studio with him is a Swedish camera operator...and not only is she beautiful, opening beer bottles is one of her hobbies. And yet he hugs on and daydreams Patrick

[geekhut]

Have been using DD-WRT for about three years and there are features I just can't live without.

After looking into tomato's wiki I found these features are fully supported! So I am making the switch after this post.

I think a lot of people do not really utilize the full power of these little boxes. There are a ton of VERY useful services such as internal DNS, Additional DHCP configuration parameters (like pointing to a box running TFTP for PXE) and RADIUS using Chilispot (plus DB box for auth and logging)

Super awesome-o show, looks like Peter should have been the one drinking - it appeared he was having a bad day.

I bought a cheap router to use while I did the upgrade would I still have internet at worse case scenario. Also to have online access incase I needed some online docs or help. I have a buffalo router and they can be funky in these situations. I am on the ackup router now. and I will try tomato tonight.