any FULLY open source wireless routers out there?

[Bill Bogstad]

I've been thinking about replacing my Linksys WRT54G wireless router
and was wondering if there are any products in this space which are
fully open source. By this, I mean they don't have any binary drivers
linked into their kernel.  Even better would be no binary only
firmware as well.  Best would be if the hardware vendor actively
encouraged replacement firmware (forums or a wiki for people to their
hacks).  All this in an integrated package that I don't have to
assemble myself.  (i.e. I don't want to plug a USB wireless dongle
into a Shivaplug.)  Does a product/vendor exist in this space?

Thanks,
Bill Bogstad

P.S. In case it isn't obvious, I'm aware of the various after-market
firmwares for some of the products out there.  My impression is that
they receive little encouragement
from any of the hardware vendors and many of them depend on binary
blobs (kernel drivers/firmwares) which can make it
difficult/impossible to upgrade to the latest OS kernels.
_______________________________________________
Discuss mailing list
Discuss@...
http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss

[Tom Metro-16]

Bill Bogstad wrote:
> ...they don't have any binary drivers linked into their kernel.

I don't know about that, but...


> Best would be if the hardware vendor actively encouraged replacement
> firmware... All this in an integrated package that I don't have to
> assemble myself. Does a product/vendor exist in this space?

Yes, there are several smaller hardware vendors that ship their products
with the well known replacement firmwares - DD-WRT or OpwnWRT - as the
officially supported and supplied firmware. I recall some being
advertised on the DD-WRT site...looks like they have a bunch of products
on their store site:
http://www.dd-wrt.com/shop/catalog/


On the OpenWRT side there is:
http://www.ubnt.com/products/rs.php

which is a raw board that sells for about $60 and comes with OpenWRT.
Looks like they have some turn-key packaged solutions too, such as:
http://www.ubnt.com/products/ap1000.php

but they're described as coming with "AirOS by Ubiquiti Networks. It
also is supported by a Linux SDK to encourage open source development."

I couldn't find a price for the above product, but ran across a thread
on the DD-WRT forums from last Fall:
http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=40013

saying shipment was delayed, and also mentioned that you normally had to
pay a fee to use DD-WRT on Ubiquiti routers.


And then there are a pile of other vendors, such as
http://www.pcengines.ch/alix.htm , that make router or router-like
single board computers, both raw and packaged, that are shipped with a
Linux distribution other than the above two. They shouldn't be too hard
to find on http://linuxdevices.com/ and other sites that deal with
embedded Linux.


While you might get vendor support from this approach, you'll
undoubtedly pay higher up-front cost (often you'll have to pay extra for
the wireless radio card), and have a smaller community of developers and
users using the product.

  -Tom

--
Tom Metro
Venture Logic, Newton, MA, USA
"Enterprise solutions through open source."
Professional Profile: http://tmetro.venturelogic.com/
_______________________________________________
Discuss mailing list
Discuss@...
http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss