Funding Global Domination Mk II "The Console"

roguemoko at roguewrt.org roguemoko at roguewrt.org
Wed Dec 10 02:02:23 CET 2008


Stroller wrote:
> For me, personally, a fully open-source ADSL router would be more  
> compelling. Whilst you can do just about anything you want with  
> iptables, most of us need a separate ADSL box of some sort [1]. Given  
> any arbitrary ADSL router I'm sure I could find something about it I  
> don't quite like, for some certain obscure configuration. The Wanadoo  
> Livebox has, for instance, a USB port, which would allow you to run a  
> print server on it or BitTorrent to an external hard-drive (like the  
> Asus WL-700gE). But you can't because it's bleedin' closed.

Out of curiosity, what's the main benefit in having a hackable ADSL 
router? Outside of consolidating router and modem?

I've always bridged and considered an ADSL modem to be a transparent 
device whilst using OpenWRT on routers to perform all required 
networking and authentication. OpenWRT supports a lot of hardware, with 
quite a few sporting USB. Webcams, printservers, fileservers (nfs or 
external hdd) and a lot more is possible. There's even people using usb 
modems controlled by the router (possibly 3G wirless or like but I 
didn't read too deep).

Unless there is something at the lower level that can be altered  ... 
maybe to facilitate QOS and latency etc ... I can't see any benefit.

Now if Openmoko were to create an OpenWRT compatible router with stupid 
amounts of storage space, awesome wireless range, a screaming CPU and 
the ability to have persistent system time across reboots (syncing to 
internal ntp for openvpn to even start is kinda annoying and external 
syncing is not 100%)... I'd buy that :) ... currently consumer routers 
(I use the Asus WL-500GP and WL-500W) are less than optimal, but do the 
job. Potentially there could be some affiliation as I don't believe 
there is any specific 'OpenWRT' router. Mmmmmm the OpenmokoWRT *drool*

Sarton




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