Belkin's WRT54G Router Successor Is Crap On The Software Front So Far

[schmidtbag]

Apparently you weren't following the whole thing very closely...
LOTS of very informed/rational folks had reasonable expectations to think something (roughly) like that may ultimately emerge.
Alas this whole saga is now (almost) at an end, I doubt there'll be any more twists, but join the thread if you want to watch.
It's looking increasingly like much (not all) of the blame may actually lay with Marvell...

Right, I'm not saying there were not well-informed people who had a reasonable expectation for a WRT54G successor. What I'm saying is expecting Belkin to make the "2nd coming" is their mistake.

[jalyst]

Right, I'm not saying there were not well-informed people who had a reasonable expectation for a WRT54G successor. What I'm saying is expecting Belkin to make the "2nd coming" is their mistake.

Just to be clear I wasn't criticising/attacking you, I was merely highlighting a matter of "perspective"...
If you'd followed from the outset, you'd appreciate why they had good sense to believe things may indeed pan out, not be a "2nd coming", but pan out in a good "F/OSS'y" sense.

[caligula]

Avoid Marvell at all costs!
Their quality is outright horrible, there are nearly no free drivers, some only work with ancient kernel versions. Try to get in contact an ask them? Nah, first you fill out an NDA for a stupid support request.

That is the problem of all those "box"makers. Be it cellphones, routers, laptops, whatsnot. They all manage to incorporate one or the other chip that is ridiculously infested with proprietary crap. A lot of these OpenMOKO successors had Imagination Tech (PowerVR) chips inside. Fail. In Laptops and routers it is broadcomm chips or some strange SuperIO or others that hamper your efforts on enjoying the device.
I mean it is extra strange when people plan on doing something "freedom" "Linux" "community" or "fair" to not make sure to use only chips with appropriate documentation / drivers.

The hardware manufacturers prefer offering closed source solutions. That way the trade secrets and new design won't leak that easily to competitors and also forces the customers to buy more chips because the hardware turns into crap faster due to shitty software stack. They even offer exclusive deals with lower prices to vendors who will gladly ship their cheap shitty chips. Marvell, ralink, broadcom are all full of shit. Their employees are filthy sadists and anti-floss losers.

[Marc Driftmeyer]

So glad I run Airport Extreme base stations for Wifi.

[GraysonPeddie]

So glad I run Airport Extreme base stations for Wifi.

How would you configure the base station if you don't have a Mac or an iPhone/iPad? I could buy one of Airport Extreme if it can be configured in Linux but then I don't think there's a web interface, right? There's no utility for Linux except for Windows, Mac, and iPhone/iPad devices.

[Remdul]

FFS would someone just start selling these. Open source hardware design (CERN license), open OS, and the specs mean it should easily match (or exceed) the performance of the Ubiquiti Edgerouter line without having to resort to the Edgerouter's closed-source, proprietary, hardware offloading.

Quoting because that looks damned interesting. Look at that! How the hell do they manage to stay so low profile?

[Marc Driftmeyer]

How would you configure the base station if you don't have a Mac or an iPhone/iPad? I could buy one of Airport Extreme if it can be configured in Linux but then I don't think there's a web interface, right? There's no utility for Linux except for Windows, Mac, and iPhone/iPad devices.

Let me get this straight, people run dozens of Virtual Machines, commonly including Windows, on their generic PC and yet you cannot manage to do so, in order to configure an Airport Base Station Extreme, or go buy an older generation iPad? Hell you can pick one up a iPad 3 for $225 on Ebay that is Wifi+cellular and 32GB.

People routinely spend $500+ on a new GPU for both Linux and Windows gaming, yet cannot fork over some cash to have quality network configured and a helluva a device like an iPad?

Keep fighting the fight against whatever.

[Gusar]

Let me get this straight, people run dozens of Virtual Machines, commonly including Windows, on their generic PC and yet you cannot manage to do so, in order to configure an Airport Base Station Extreme, or go buy an older generation iPad? Hell you can pick one up a iPad 3 for $225 on Ebay that is Wifi+cellular and 32GB.

People routinely spend $500+ on a new GPU for both Linux and Windows gaming, yet cannot fork over some cash to have quality network configured and a helluva a device like an iPad?

Maybe people just don't like Apple and their walled garden. Not everyone has a Windows license or runs virtualization software, you don't consider the need for them to configure a router total overkill? And are you seriously advocating spending $200+ on a tablet, which one has no use for otherwise (if they did, they'd already own one), just to configure a router??

[droidhacker]

It's Belkin - anyone who thought this would have been comparable to the old WRT54G had their expectations too high. I have never used a Belkin I liked, then again, every single Linksys I've ever seen was either decommissioned or faulty in some way.

Too high? WRT54G was a complete POS when it was new. It was *SO* bad, that it **GAVE BIRTH** to OpenWRT to deal with its shortcomings.
But even then, hardware wise, it was still JUNK.

[schmidtbag]

Too high? WRT54G was a complete POS when it was new. It was *SO* bad, that it **GAVE BIRTH** to OpenWRT to deal with its shortcomings.
But even then, hardware wise, it was still JUNK.

Like I said, the only WRT54Gs I have been around were faulty or decommissioned. I'm not exactly praising their hardware. But from what I gather, OpenWRT and DDWRT were good enough that there were less hardware issues.