OpenWrt Forum Archive

Topic: WRT54GX experiences

The content of this topic has been archived on 6 May 2018. There are no obvious gaps in this topic, but there may still be some posts missing at the end.

Has anyone had the opportunity to try Linksys' new WRT54GX?  It's listed as "should work" on the hardware page.  Is the MIMO tech worth the US$180 price tag?

Has anyone had the opportunity to try Linksys' new WRT54GX?  It's listed as "should work" on the hardware page.  Is the MIMO tech worth the US$180 price tag?

I've been playing around with the belkin pre n model, it's definity got increased throughput and range, does what it say's on the tin... it really does give more throughput, and uses a normal 20mhz radio channel

beware of mimo solution the use EVIL channel bonding, using 40mhz of spectrum is not the way to increase throughtput, it's just leaves you with less channels to play with and pisses off all your wireless neightbours....you don't want a wireless war on your hands..could get nasty.

for point to point links, I'm not sure mimo will help in that case, it's 3xanntenna design, nobody seems to know the correct procedure for hooking up mimo setup's to say a 24db directional? I guess it's time to experimenting with that stuff.

if your looking to increase backhaul bandwidth, and let's face it if your building a wireless mesh, that's where the bottle necks are, 2xwrt54g and each end maybe a better solution... and use a per packet loadbalacing system?

come to think of it, multilink ppp might be an option, but I'm not sure if you can use mutlilink over pppoe?? might make s nice solution.

the belkin unit does not seems to want to do any kind of wds, that feature is not working...

so, to sum up, mimo works great, can improve range for onmi ap setups, and gives you more speed (with mimo laptop cards), for p2p and wds stuff, that's a big unknown at the moment.

I've seen talk of mimo system with 4 or more radio's, multiplexing speeds to 100mb and beyond...

the future's fast.... but not fast enough yet.

Laters,

The nice thing about the Airgonet AGN100 chipset the drivers supporting Multi SSID.

The next AP is supporting Virtual AP, own SSID, Authentication type, enriprion type and VLAN supprt.
http://www.sohoware.com/span/new_sohowa … tspot1.htm

The Airgonet AGN100 chipset are in the Linksys WRT54GX and the belkin Pre-N.

In the GPL tarbal you can find the binary Drivers and wireless tools
http://web.belkin.com/r.asp?url=/suppor … .00.06.tgz

So it should be possible to start building an openWRT release for the Linksys WRT54GX and the Belkin Pre-N

toxicnaan wrote:

if your looking to increase backhaul bandwidth, and let's face it if your building a wireless mesh, that's where the bottle necks are, 2xwrt54g and each end maybe a better solution... and use a per packet loadbalacing system?

come to think of it, multilink ppp might be an option, but I'm not sure if you can use mutlilink over pppoe?? might make s nice solution.

The ADMTek Switch in the pre-v2.2 WRT54Gs has a hardware port-trunking feature on ports 3 and 4.  My understanding of this feature is that, when enabled, allowed you to double the bandwidth between two ADMTek Switches if the ports 3 and 4 on both switches were connected in parallel.  I'm thinking that if you used two bridge/AP units at each end and connected one each to these "trunk" ports, you could double your bandwidth and have redundancy in your link.  Of course, this solution doesn't use the WRT's internal radio, but requires 3rd-party APs.

I believe that in Linux there is a kernel driver/option that allows load balancing across NICs connected in parallel.

Not that any of this has anything to do with the WRT54GX.  Sorry for going a bit off topic. smile

Dan

(Last edited by danversj on 27 Jun 2005, 04:44)

OpenWrt boots just fine on the GX, the issue is that the wireless driver does not appear to work on the OpenWrt kernel and debuging a binary only module is a slow process.

i just opend up a linksys WRT54GX-AU i guess the AU is just for australian version
after a bit of dismantling i got to the wifi end of the unit
the mimo minipci or should i say HUGEpci heh... coz its soo massive compared to a normal card it can hardly be called minipci. the chipset is AIRGO from AIRGO networks.  i went to the web site there is apparently some kind of GPL code around
at the url http://gpl.airgonetworks.com/ however this link was broken or perhaps overloaded or something. so i have no idea what is actually there to download

-----snip------
Software

Airgo Networks provides ready to use full-featured software that shortens time-to-market and takes advantage of Airgo's high performance product designs and chipsets. Available software includes:

Comprehensive Manufacturing Test Support Utilities
Turnkey Windows NDIS Drivers
Customizable Full-Featured Client Application Utilities
System Software

Link to GPL Code Center

-----snip-----

is there hope for the driver code to be avail to use with openwrt??
or perhaps some kind of makeshift NDIS windows driver loader possible??

i certainly agree that there is some improvement in signal/throughput seeing as im involved in building hotspots for various markets.... this unit would be ideal for a small cafe or single unit on premises acting as hotspot so id love to see openwrt on the WRT54GX unit.

let me know if there is something i can do to help make it happen

for now i can offer pictures of the unit disasembled or any parts listing and or pictures from the unit

i have sent an email to airgonetworks asking why that link is broken. ill report their reply.


regards

_HiDDeN_
www.wirelessholidays.com

I wrote to Airgo, saying come, give us the tools so we can run our own firmware, got a marketing droid response..
it's here, how very upsetting.

looks like I'll be avoiding airgo products myself then..
---------------------------SNIP----------------------


Sent: Tuesday, May 10, 2005 10:11 AM
To: Nicole Martin
Cc: webmaster@moskaluk.com
Subject: 802.11n for linux please.

Hi this is a open to letter to airgo networks, please
relases linux kernel drivers for your 802.11n
products. I run a community mesh project here

http://www.naan.org.uk/naanwireless/range/document_view

we're always running out of bandwidth, the core of our
network is many linux routers running open mesh
protocotols, we have a airgo based access point on
test at the moment, and have had great speed and
success with it. All we are asking is that you study
this page

http://www.moskaluk.com/next_best_thing.htm

and release linux drivers for your products.

go on, be different to broadcom,

you'll make more money (becasuse we'll buy lots!)


-----------------------------there reply!----------

I'm not sure if you were sent a reply:

The current release of the Airgo AP-SDK is 1.5. There are no GPL
components used is this release so there is no GPL publishing
requirement. Current Airgo GPL Status and appropriate source code can
be
found at our GPL website at:

http://gpl.airgonetworks.com/

The Airgo AP-SDK Release 1.5 does include OpenSSL. OpenSSL is
copyrighted and licensed by Eric Young (not a GPL license), therefore
the derivatives of our code are appropriately copyrighted. 

Airgo AP-SDK source code to be incorporated into access points, clients
and other wireless implementations is provided to Airgo contracted
customers.

So I understand from Guus's message ONE radio can handle MULTIPLE SSIDs? Is there any change of a working radio with OpenWRT on a Linksys WRT54GX? What do I have to do to get this working?

I really would like multiple SSIDs so I can use ONE AccessPoint to communicate both WEP and WPA (for example..maybe WPA and NO encryption..or something)..

The discussion might have continued from here.