和而不同

I just bought a D-Link DIR-320 wireless router (802.11g compatible) for HK$325. While some friends might consider it a bit expensive considering 802.11n routers at comparable price point. I bought it because it has 32M memory and it is (relatively) easy to flash it with custom firmware. Yay!

The first thing I do after I bought it from the retail store is to flash it with the dd-wrt standard firmware. The instructions are simple enough, the problem is that it just doesn’t work for me. I need to tftp the image to the firmware when the router is booting up, which is a split of a second after the ethernet link comes up. I never could get the perfect timing at least on the PowerMac I was using.

And then I booted my MacBook Pro into Windows XP (which I rarely do) and try to flash the firmware from there, exactly as described by the instructions. I have thoughtlessly repeated the process many times before the firmware finally get flashed. It seems I have to catch a perfect timing.

A whole new world opens after the router is running with custom firmware. There are a hell of a lot of settings I can manipulate, though I will not change most of them. The most notable improvements include support for VLAN, multiple SSIDs, SSH, etc. In other words, I transformed this $325 router into a $3xxx router. XD