Netgear Launches Open Source-Friendly Wireless Router

An anonymous reader submits news of Netgear's release of the "open source Wireless-G Router (model WGR614L), enabling Linux developers and enthusiasts to create firmware for specialized applications, and supported by a dedicated open source community. The router supports the most popular open source firmware; Tomato and DD-WRT are available on WGR614L, making it easier for users to develop a wide variety of applications. The router is targeted at people who want custom firmware on their router without worrying about issues, and enjoy the benefits of having an open source wireless router."

I think they already tried this once...

[DaMoisture]

The KWGR614 [netgear.com] was the single worst router I have ever used. VPN, chat, P2P, and any other application that required other than port 80 never worked, it liked to drop connections for no reason, and has received not a single firmware update to date. At least Newegg [newegg.com] was nice enough to give me my money back so I could buy a Linksys. The only success it achieved was setting the bar extremely low for this new open source offering.

Buffalo anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hasn't Buffalo been shipping routers running DD-WRT for the longest time? Shouldn't we be supporting the people who were doing it the longest?

Re:no USB?

[Anonymous Coward]

The high-performance WGR614L, which is "Works with Windows Vista" certified, features a 240 MHz MIPS32 CPU core with 16 KB of instruction cache, 16 KB of data cache, 1 KB of pre-fetch cache, and incorporates 4 MB of flash memory and 16 MB of RAM. In addition to an external 2 dBi antenna, the WGR614L integrates a second internal diversity antenna to provide enhanced performance and range.

Tomato and DD-WRT is not open nor free;use openWRT

[viking80]

Tomato is not really open source. It is open source except for the UI.
DD-WRT is just a branch of OpenWRT that costs money. It is free for home use however.

Use OpenWRt; It is open and free. If you want simplicity, use X-wrt, which is basically OpenWRT with a web based UI. It does not use the latest version of OpenWRT, but is very stable. It includes a smörgåsbord of modules to add with a simple mouse click.

Re:I think they already tried this once...

[jchawk]

I had trouble with my Netgear wireless router... It would work fine for a few days then would stop accepting new connections.

I upgraded to the latest firmware and haven't had any trouble since...

If you haven't already tried, it's probably worth a shot!

Invalidate warranty?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm... " !!!! Opening The Router Housing or Putting In Any Customer
Software on The Router Will Void The Warranty On Your
Router!!!!"

WGR614L Open Source Guide V2 [myopenrouter.com]

What does it mean by open source anyway? Could I install OpenBSD on this thing? I thought broadcom was one of those difficult manufacturers whose stuff had to be reverse engineered because there are no specs? They came around?

Netgear is correcting their screwup

[Hanzie]

Apparently a number of the new WGR614L router boxes got WGR614v9 routers instead.

This page:

WGR614L really a WG614v9? [myopenrouter.com]

talks about it.

May 16, 2008 3:36 PM Sean, I am the Product Line Manager for Wireless Products at NETGEAR and I apologize. Please do send me your contact information and I will send you a WGR614L version out immediately. There had been an issue with one of our distributors and a few V9 versions was shipped out by mistake. We have recalled, but I guess you were one of the unfortunate ones to get a V9. Again, I apologize. My email address is **DELETED** Please do send me your address. Regards -Som Pal Choudhury Senior Product Line Manager, Advanced Wireless NETGEAR Inc.

I removed his contact numbers and email address. They're on the page I linked to, and he really doesn't need a slashdot post of his vitals, he's got enough problems right now.

Nice to see Netgear's on the ball.

Apparently Netgear's guy responsible is personally taking care of the problem.

hanzie

Re:no USB?

[Thrashing Rage]

Actually there is instructions on their website on how to solder a USB cable to the router. This is shown for recovery purposes.

http://www.myopenrouter.com/article/10341/Recover-Your-WGR614L-Using-a-Serial-Console-Windows/ [myopenrouter.com]

Probably not exactly what you want but, its nice there is already instructions (in case) you brick it.

Re:Netgear is correcting their screwup

[Anonymous Coward]

My email address is [e-mail]. Please do send me your address.

Regards

-Som Pal Choudhury
Senior Product Line Manager, Advanced Wireless
NETGEAR Inc.
Off: 408-367-7884
Cell: 408-910-2936

My Buffalo runs BSD

[Nick Driver]

I bought a Buffalo wifi router a couple years ago, when Worst Buy has them on clearance for $39. It runs stock firmware, which identifies itself as BSD based. The thing works flawlessly. I wish I had a couple more of them.

broadcom firmware?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does it still use broadcom chipset? If so, it is not really open sourced (neither is WRT54GL), since the wireless firmware is totally closed behind the door.

Re:Losing Marketshare to Linksys

[Fallen Kell]

Dude, Linksys routers were SHIPPED with linux originally back in 2002. Yes, the "L" version came out in 2005, the only reason there is an "L" version is because after v3 of the WRT54G, Linksys removed 1/2 the memory and switched to a proprietary firemware and not open source because they were threatened with lawsuits due to the original versions and not fully complying at first with release of the source code. They felt they had given up too many secrets of how their hardware worked when they had to release the source code in compliance with the GPL, and also wanted to cut production costs. The "L" version was really just a WRT54G version 3 hardware, which they then priced a lot higher...

Re:no USB?

[Minwee]

That's a serial console. The fact that USB was involved is just a coincidence.

Netgear rep contact info

[Hanzie]

Can a moderator or two give a +1 informative to the parent of this post, please?

The below contact info was posted by an AC whom I believe to be the Netgear gentleman in question.

Here it is again (because lots of folks will never see an AC post)

My email address is [e-mail]. Please do send me your address. Regards -Som Pal Choudhury Senior Product Line Manager, Advanced Wireless NETGEAR Inc. Off: 408-367-7884 Cell: 408-910-2936

Mr. Choudhury, I recommend registering for an account here and posting. If you don't, someone else will.

Thank you very much for proactively working to fix the problem. It gives me confidence that your company's equipment might be worth trying.

hanzie.

Re:Buffalo anyone?

[lscotte]

Uh, no... Buffalo stopped sales of all their wifi products as of November 2007 due to an injunction against them from Australia. Go Google for it, but you won't be buying a Buffalo wifi router anytime in the near future...

Re:no USB?

[McNally]

Is this some kind of joke? What the hell do you need USB for?

For just a moment, don't think of it as a router. Think of it as a low-power-consumption custom Linux server with a certain amount of RAM and a certain amount of flash storage. Now think about other options for such a device -- perhaps as a SAMBA file server or a CUPS print server. I'd even like to see it with an audio output so I could hook it to a stereo ala Apple's Aiport Express -- I'm sure someone would soon have a pretty good UPnP media server software project well underway -- but if they don't want to build audio in USB would at least leave it open as an option.

Apple's got several successful products (Time Capsule & Airport Express) that exist in the "wireless access point plus more" realm. A moderately-priced decent-build-quality piece of hardware with fair extension capabilities via open-source firmware has some pretty fascinating potential.

Re:no USB?

[afidel]

Hahahaha, you think a multi-hundred mhz cpu can't saturate a 100Mb line, I did it with a 66Mhz pentium. Also you save a TON on power by using a low power device like these as a low volume file server. I wouldn't hang an entire office off one, but they have more horesepower than most of the fileservers had when I started in the industry, and we made those work somehow =)

Re:maybe some kind soul will write an autoconfig a

[afidel]

Look into uPnP (universal plug and play/pray). It's horribly insecure both from a design standpoint and from the standpoint of most of the real world code being horribly sloppy, but it exists and is fairly well supported for opening up the required ports for applications from Windows. I personally turn it off on both the router and the client because it's been the source of TONS of critical security vulnerabilities.

Sadly necessary...

[Markos]

Well, considering it's possible, but not likely, to brick a router when flashing I'd say they really can't support it officially via warranty.

As far as I know, Linksys at some point back was forced to comply with the GPL and release their Linux firmware. Inside the firmware is a binary kernel driver, like Nvidia, that enables support with the wireless aspect of the chipset. No source code is available for this.

All of the open source firmwares for these routers are based on the orignal Linksys source AFAIK.

Re:IPv6?

[Bert64]

Apple airport extreme supports IPv6, and has gige built in.

Re:no USB?

[TomC2]

I believe there are a handful of consumer routers out there that can also use their USB port as a printer server, which could be handy.