The normal Cisco / Linksys provided firmware on the wireless router does not have as many features as the firmware upgrades that the DD-WRT has made.
A short list of features from the DD-WRT include:
- Ability to support VPN for secure communication
- SSH support for managing the router over the web or a terminal
- Better wireless support
- Tweak power settings of the wireless router
- Quality of service, access control and network management
- Bandwidth monitoring.
- Increase range of the router
- Make your wireless router work as a repeater
and many more features.
After careful deliberation, you can choose to upgrade, a Linksys WRT54G2 v1 from the default factory fitted firmware to the DD-WRT micro-plus-ssh version. The additional care also means you need to consider that your router’s warranty from Linksys will be void. Do this only if you need additional features and find the trade-off feasible or your router is off-warranty. One big trade-off could be the ability to increase the wireless router’s range compared to that offered by the default Linksys firmware.
Technical Details of the Linksys WRT54G2 v1. wireless router
The Linksys WRT54G2 v1 has 2 mb of flash RAM and about 4 mb of other RAM. Therefore, when flashing with the DD-WRT firmware, you need to make sure that only those firmware that have a size less than 2 mb are used. Using any other larger firmware will make your Linksys WRT54G2 v1. router a brick or a paperweight.
Instructions on how to perform the upgrade are at http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Linksys_WRT54G2#NEW_WIKI_Install_Material for the WRT54G2 v1.0 Linksys Router. Remember to upgrade to a DD-WRT firmware that is the latest for your router.
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