4 ms·

The WRT54 is still one of my favorite pieces of industrial design. Small case, purpleblue and grey, two antennas. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linksys_WRT

by all2 3mo ago

The WRT54 is still one of my favorite pieces of industrial design. Small case, ~~purple~~blue and grey, two antennas. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linksys_WRT54G_series https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linksys_WRT54G_series

excalibur 3mo ago
Still have one, still works. Would happily use it if it were still practical. I think you can still load OpenWRT on them, but there's no software route around the hardware being outdated and slow.
- tapper 3mo ago
  Yeah me to. I hade a WRT54G V2.2 for ages. Loved that thing. Just toslow now tho.
  - ninjin 3mo ago
    As a counter opinion to "too slow" in regards to 54Mbps, as it likely depends on your use cases. My WRT54GL was the primary family router until 2018 and even worked just fine for live video broadcasting. Even today it sees good use for video calls with no issues at all. Lovely little piece of hardware that refuses to die. Just a shame that OpenWRT has dropped support since 2013, which feels a bit ironic given their name.
- M95D 3mo ago
  > I think you can still load OpenWRT on them Not a recent version, not from the last 10 years at least. They dropped even 8/32MB devices. On my Turris Omnia, the bare system with nothing else running takes about 70MB RAM, mostly because of kernel size. Linux itself isn't as light as it used to be. The best you can do is put DD-WRT on it. AFAIK, they still use kernel v2.6 on devices this old.
bschwindHN 3mo ago
My first WiFi router :) I bought it in anticipation of the Nintendo DS having WiFi capabilities, which I had never heard of before (I was like 13 or 14 then). Had to convince my parents to get broadband internet too.
auselen 3mo ago
One could stack them.
- vsviridov 3mo ago
  I was so annoyed that the Linksys cable modem, that came in the exact same color scheme was not stackable with the routers. You had a wifi router and a non wifi router in the same exact case with same exact front panel. But no, the modem was completely different form factor.

The WRT54 is still one of my favorite pieces of industrial design. Small case, ~~purple~~blue and grey, two antennas. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linksys_WRT

by all2 3mo ago

excalibur 3mo ago

Still have one, still works. Would happily use it if it were still practical. I think you can still load OpenWRT on them, but there's no software route around the hardware being outdated and slow.

tapper 3mo ago
Yeah me to. I hade a WRT54G V2.2 for ages. Loved that thing. Just toslow now tho.
- ninjin 3mo ago
  As a counter opinion to "too slow" in regards to 54Mbps, as it likely depends on your use cases. My WRT54GL was the primary family router until 2018 and even worked just fine for live video broadcasting. Even today it sees good use for video calls with no issues at all. Lovely little piece of hardware that refuses to die. Just a shame that OpenWRT has dropped support since 2013, which feels a bit ironic given their name.
M95D 3mo ago
> I think you can still load OpenWRT on them Not a recent version, not from the last 10 years at least. They dropped even 8/32MB devices. On my Turris Omnia, the bare system with nothing else running takes about 70MB RAM, mostly because of kernel size. Linux itself isn't as light as it used to be. The best you can do is put DD-WRT on it. AFAIK, they still use kernel v2.6 on devices this old.

bschwindHN 3mo ago

My first WiFi router :) I bought it in anticipation of the Nintendo DS having WiFi capabilities, which I had never heard of before (I was like 13 or 14 then). Had to convince my parents to get broadband internet too.

auselen 3mo ago

One could stack them.

vsviridov 3mo ago
I was so annoyed that the Linksys cable modem, that came in the exact same color scheme was not stackable with the routers. You had a wifi router and a non wifi router in the same exact case with same exact front panel. But no, the modem was completely different form factor.