[spash]

Besides DD-WRT, which can be at times quite flaky a unreliable on WRT54GL with its outdated OS base and a slow UI (and also a real pain to keep track on the few working firmware revisions as time progresses over the years; many DD-WRT users and the DD-WRT site will sadly keep suggesting to use half a decade old firmware for it [1][2][3] and any 'official' activity seems to have stopped years ago) and the Open-WRT which sadly hasn't supported WRT54GL for the last several generations [4] despite its by now somewhat ironic name, there's also Tomato by Shibby [5] (note: This is a fork of the original 'well known' Tomato that stopped its development half a decade ago - though surprisingly people sill run even that one), which is amazingly supported today with regular and frequent updates [6], latest security fixes and modern revisions of base software and OS tools, with properly working kernel 2.6-generation, IPv6, QoS and not at the very least with the staple slick Tomato configuration interface. If you happen to run a WRT54GL, you must give Shibby's Tomato a try sometime to see what this piece of hardware can still do.

Disclaimer: I'm by no means affiliated, but run WRT54GL hardware actively and at times I'm still regularly amazed at what Shibby can squeeze out of the mere 4MB of flash space and a hardware that wouldn't properly run a smartwatch alarm applet in 2016.

--

[1] - http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Linksys_WRT54GL

[2] - http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=51486

[3] - http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=288371

  If you're lucky, you may also end up with gems like this:
  > Malachi - DD-WRT Guru
  > Your router was made in the 1800's. Why do you need firmware made yesterday.

[4] - https://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/linksys/wrt54g

[5] - http://tomato.groov.pl/

[6] - http://tomato.groov.pl/?page_id=78

[wila]

Got a WRT54GL here that runs on a recent DD-WRT build. Also run Shibby's tomato on a beefier Linksys. openWRT on yet another Linksys and plenty of pfSense around here as well. They are all quite wonderful.

> any 'official' activity seems to have stopped years ago

That's what I thought as well until I searched a bit better. DD-Wrt is under development and the recent DD-WRT v3.0-r29837 mini (06/06/16) does run quite well on the Linksys WRT54GL.

Installed it 12 days ago and it just runs and runs [1].

Yes it is a beta branch, but I've been on the beta track on a variety of builds for over a year and never had any issues. The trick was in finding out at the forum on what still worked on that old router.

The download location [2] is not as easy to find as official page only links back to the really really old firmware.

Just navigate up on that ftp-site and you can find newer builds as well.

From the different firmware builds on the beta tree that I tested, the mini build is the one that appears to work best on the WRT54GL. The normal build might work, but I had some troubles with it when I tried.

Of course I understand it if you prefer not to run beta software, but it's very stable and better then running a very outdated firmware in my opinion.

[1] http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=302224&postdays...

[2] http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=1036133&highlig...

[spash]

> Of course I understand it if you prefer not to run beta software,

Oh not at all, this is good news that there is still some activity wrt 54GL (pun intended). Having alternatives to fall back to is always a good thing. I've been on DD-WRT originally since about 2007 and went through many, many years of digging through forum threads, tracking and collecting all the reasonably stable revisions, kept comparing results with nightlies with other GL owners, had some good long stable runs even with a few broken features here and there and a good number of near-brickings saved only by a handy TFTP bootstrap...

I've only dropped my last DD-WRT install roughly some two years ago when I discovered Shibby and replaced all the other alternatives with it (i.e. the other very good VicTek's RAF firmware is not usable in all deployments as it can't fit even IPv6 support into the 4MB build that the 54GL is limited with, making your options limited) and I stopped keeping much track on DD-WRT since. Some other current DD-WRT people I know weren't very happy still, even though some stay with DD-WRT for own obscure reasons.

But by the way, the forum threads you linked to don't paint the situation in the best light with regard to stability:

  > My WRT54GL is running since ages on the mini-generic 14929 build, you can find it here:
  > ftp://ftp.dd-wrt.com/betas/2010/...
  > Together with a daily scheduled reboot I tend to forget were the thing is located in our house

"2010 firmware..."

"daily scheduled reboot..."

Or:

  > I just upgraded to:
  > ftp://ftp.dd-wrt.com/betas/2016/...
  > I've tried a few different bin's and while I did get the standard version to work, it seemed a bit unstable.

"a bit unstable" is pretty much as good as simply "unstable".

Now with Shibby I currently run GL with average half a year uptimes (usually ended by a forced powerplant cycle in the location, never had a crash or a spontaneous reboot on it as far as I remember). Still, as long as recent versions of DD-WRT build and run on 54GL, there's some chance at a good revision that can possibly squeeze few more years out of the hardware, depending on what features will work. Will keep an eye on it, it may still become handy if something bad happens with Shibby's work, which at this point and the age of the hardware wouldn't be that surprising.

[wila]

Hehe, that last reply in the thread is mine. Yes it _was_ unstable for me running the standard build. That was just an experiment though as I had been running on the mini build "forever". Figured I try the standard build, but after a few hours with weird errors I reverted back to the mini build.

As for the 2010 remark, well I don't know why somebody would run a firmware that old, especially if it isn't stable.

If I'm not mistaken then the last released -non beta- version is:

ftp://ftp.dd-wrt.com/others/eko/BrainSlayer-V24-preSP2/2014/12-22-2014-r25697/broadcom/

At least that's what is in my notes, but I'm happy on the beta trail.

FWIW, the mini build also doesn't support IPv6 which is exactly why I tried the standard version again. In the past the standard version did no longer fit into the 54GL anymore. At the moment it is not a real issue for me as the 54GL only serves a WiFi guest network, but if IPv6 ever gets adopted ;) it might become one.

As I noticed the current size of the standard build download was smaller I ended up trying it again. Didn't work well in my case, but the mini build is good.

The router with Shibby that I have here gives a similar experience it great uptime and really only ever gets rebooted when I decide to run a firmware upgrade (or when there's a power outage which is very rare down here).

[spash]

Out of curiosity, what is your reason to run DD-WRT on a GL? Considering you have Shibby also deployed and are thus presumably familiar with its feature set, is there something in DD-WRT that makes it particularly important to have on the GL?

[wila]

Familiarity, curiosity and not even realizing that the firmware from Shibby runs on the GL are some of the reasons. Besides that there's customers running on DD-WRT so it is good to have at least one form of it running inhouse. Those customers are not on the mini nor on a GL, but there it works and in that case cross flashing remote routers is something I'd rather not do.

[rconti]

I always loved Tomato; ran it on my 54GLs which I still have (though one is pre-L branding).

I had a Cisco E3000 that I tried to love; bought it because it supported DD-WRT so once I got sick of the Cisco firmware I tried DD-WRT. It seemed like an endless headache and never worked quite right, so I flashed back to the stock Cisco stuff; I realized the stock OS supported everything I needed anyway, and was more stable. I wish consumer stuff had more cool graphs and the like.

[lmns]

>It seemed like an endless headache and never worked quite right

The E3000 is based on a Broadcom SoC without free drivers. That's always a bad sign for third party support. Basically you are limited to some ancient kernel which may or may not be running stable. I know the E3000 and DD-WRT on it is indeed a mess.

"Supported" with proprietary drivers often means nothing more than that it boots somehow. The same goes for the new Linksys models with "official" OpenWRT support. The wifi isn't stable at all.

[swinglock]

Shibby Tomato supports E3000 fine, I've been using Tomato on it since I bought it new. It's very stable.

[rosser]

I installed Tomato on my old 54GL and gave it to my parents. It's served them reliably for years.