How-To: Get more out of your router with DD-WRT third party firmware

What is DD-WRT?

DD-WRT is an alternative, third-party, open source, Linux based firmware which can be installed onto many off  the shelf wireless (WiFi) routers. If you’re the kind of guy or gal that has wished in the past for a  ”real” router or at least for one that had a feature set more akin to that of entry-level enterprise routers, this may be your ticket.

It should be noted that DD-WRT is not the only one of it’s kind. There are other similar Linux-based replacement router firmwares such as OpenWRT and Tomato. I believe that all of these Linux router distributions can find a common heritage in the Linux based firmware of the first Linksys WRT54G wireless routers. Linksys was obligated to freely release the code for it’s firmware as required by the GPL License. The rest, as they say, is history

Why should I use DD-WRT?

Chances are that you don’t ave any real need for going through the hoops required to install an configure DD-WRT. That said, there are many useful features which DD-WRT brings to the table. (more…)