Quoting cjl@???:
>
> I've ordered a Netgear WNDR3800. Netgears have always served me well, I
> wanted a dual band/dual radio unit, with good memory and flash
> capacities, with support from DD-WRT, and the WNDR3800 seemed to fit
> the bill.
>
> Typically, they tried to deliver it during the half hour that I was out
> the house on Friday morning, so it should be here Monday. I may not
> have time to mess with it until next weekend, though.
>
> I'll update the list when I've had a chance to play with it.
Okay, it's taken a week to find the time, but I got my new Netgear
WNDR3800 setup with Open-WRT yesterday.... so far, so good!
I opted for the (discontinued!) WNDR3800 because, in theory, it should
be fully support by both DD-WRT and Open-WRT, so I'd have the choice.
I originally planned to go for DD-WRT because the feature I really
wanted (DNS for the LAN) seemed to be better documented for DD-WRT.
Further investigation, and a bit of confusion later, I'd changed my
mind, and gone for Open-WRT - basically because everything else seems
better documented for Open-WRT.
Also, DD-WRT led to some confusion with a couple of places claming I'd
need a DD-WRT "Pro" license for use with the WNDR3800, but other
places saying otherwise. Worse, I could find no definitive pointer to
which build to actually use with my router. Compared with Open-WRT
which has a wiki page specifically for the WNDR3800, with a link
directly to the build(s) to use.
And, it turns out, since both use DNSMASQ for both DNS and DHCP, you
basically get LAN DNS "out of the box" with both!
One minor point (not really a complaint), it seems that the Open-WRT
documentation (in common with many, many projects!) is lagging a
little behind the software development, particularly where the
web-based setup gui is concerned. So whilst plenty of reading up
before hand is useful, it's also good to just have a poke around the
setup screens.
The only configuration changes I *had* to make to get it working were
a small tweak to WAN settings, and to change the region setting for
the wireless to GB, instead of US.
I have to say, I am tremendously impressed with Open-WRT. The *only*
thing to put off the novice is actually flashing the new firmware, and
how much of a problem that is depends on the router. With the
WNDR3800, Netgear's own firmware upgrade option flashed Open-WRT with
a problem, so that was about as easy as it gets.
The one thing that means I can't quite recommend Open-WRT with
reservation is that you need to do your research, and make sure you
have (or get) a well supported router. And that's not just "does it
work", but the amount of RAM and NVRAM on a router can limit the
feature set available. Probably not a big deal for most people, but if
you are going to want to use some of the more advanced features, make
sure your router has the capacity to support them.
Like I say, I'm really impressed with Open-WRT, and I want to thank
everyone here who recommended that I try it.
Chris
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