I love routers. I love all network equipment. I’m still waiting for Apple’s 802.11n router. However, perhaps the most versatile wireless router ever produced was the Linksys WRT54G. With a Linux OS whose source was released for anyone to play with, a million and one different third party firmwares were made available (I’m partial to
DD-WRT ).
Once the product reached its fifth revision, the party was over. Linksys decided to go to VxWorks, an OS aimed at real-time applications for small devices. Some clever hackers have
found a way to run Linux instead. With it’s meager RAM specifications, not many firmware distributions fit, but it’s a step in the right direction.