I have actually been thinking about replacing my Apple Airport (Gray, second one) and Linksys Router with a single device and the Linksys WRT54G seems like the way to go for 802.11G capabilities at a price much lower than Apple’s Extreme base station. I’d heard of hacking the thing, but had no idea that the firmware you could load was this sophisticated… whoa.
If you have a WRT54G, here’s what you can use it for after less than an hour’s work. You get all the original Linksys functions plus SSH, Wonder Shaper, L7 regexp iptables filtering, frottle, parprouted, the latest Busybox utilities, several custom modifications to DHCP and dnsmasq, a PPTP server, static DHCP address mapping, OSPF routing, external logging, as well as support for client, ad hoc, AP, and WDS wireless modes.
If that last paragraph meant nothing at all to you, look at it this way: the WRT54G with Sveasoft firmware is all you need to become your cul de sac’s wireless ISP. Going further, if a bunch of your friends in town had similarly configured WRT54Gs, they could seamlessly work together and put out of business your local telephone company.
That’s what I mean by a disruptive technology. [PBS | I, Cringely]
Even if he’s stretching, it’s a very cool box, for not so much money and let’s you really take advantage of your connection.