School me on Tomato firmware
 

After frustration with Shaw's mediocre service I thought I'd get the most out of my router instead of giving in and
1) giving them more of my money
or
2) buying any of their wireless hardware so they'd actually give me phone support beyond "Unplug your coaxial cable and reverse the ends to which its plugged in to depolarize the line" or "Bypass your power bar and plug your power cord directly into the wall for better electrical strength" (both suggestions I have actually received from them)


I have a WRT160N v3 and I've been thinking about Tomato's Shibby mod.
I don't have a Linux system to deploy it with. I guess I could USB boot into Ubuntu but I'd rather deploy from Windows if possible.

Or is Tomato old news? Should I be looking elsewhere for custom router firmware?

Anyone have any suggestions or ideas?

The WRT160N isn't listed as a compatible router.

You could use DD-WRT, which does support the WRT160N v3:
Linksys WRT150N & WRT160N - DD-WRT Wiki

Isn't it refined enough that you simply load the tomato firmware via the Linksys firmware update? That's what I did on the e4200 I had a while back. The top contenders are Tomato and DDWRT. They usually have easy enough to follow instructions and don't need linux.

No experience with Tomato, but DD-WRT is very easy to get set up. And seeing as your current router is only compatible with that, it could be a route to take. I don't know what your application is but you could try buying a PowerLine adapter to extend your wired and wireless range.

+1 for DD-WRT, anytime I need to buy a router, I check for DD-WRT compatibility, and the first thing when it's unboxed, it gets flashed.

Weird. I found this site that told me I am.

I'm glad I asked before I actually did anything.

http://tomato.groov.pl/?page_id=69

Just checked some other sources and it says the WRT160N v3 is compatible with Tomato. I didn't check in the beginning, just figured Jmac's post was correct.

+1 on DD-WRT as its super easy to setup.

Okay. So tell me about the before and after on DD-WRT.

Was it a noticeable improvement?

Depends on what kind of improvement you're looking for. It gives you a LOT of control over WiFi power, allowing you to seriously crank up the output signal on some routers (be careful with this, as it will also tend to generate a lot more heat - I've seen mods where people added heat sinks and fans to their routers to handle it). There are lots of other WiFi parameters that can be tweaked as well.

It also generally adds a lot of features... things like QoS, VPN server and/or client, bridging, repeating, WDS... customizable firewall, scripting, DDNS client that you can configure for almost any DDNS service out there (not just the two or three that most come pre-configured with), RADIUS security support... it has "hotspot" function, where you can require a login/password/TOC acceptance for users...

Lots of features will depend on the specific hardware - some older routers with limited memory require smaller builds with some features removed...

prop your router atop 3 tomatoes.

4 if you need more.

That quote was taken directly from Tomato's old homepage :badpokerface:

I guess they have a new homepage: http://tomatousb.org/doc:build-types

What problems are having at the moment? I have the same router and shaw service as well. My connection seems fine most of the time.
Posted via RS Mobile

my buffalo and TPlink are on DDWRT, you just have to spend quite a bit of time reading about the stability and performance on your particular model. Some will be faster some will strip some build-in features.

DDWRT and tomato unlocks a lot of features that are not available on stock firmware. You can hardly notice any difference, I am talking about maybe 96MB/s vs 90 MB/s

They can't be overly ripe tomatoes.
Do remember that we are going for FIRMware here.

There are multiple versions of Tomato now, base/original and others mostly featuring support for USB, VPN, Optware etc... Unless you're looking for some specific feature from those others though it's best to stick with the base version when you're starting out.

Biggest advantage for most people is the better implementation of port forwarding and NAT-PMP/UPNP for torrents and games. Memory management is also much better with reboot being few and far between. Logging is also available which helps with troubleshooting when you can see exactly what services are or are not working as well bandwidth control. Other things like static internal ip address assignment come in handy even on a home network. There's a lot to list but anything that can use DD-WRT or Tomato is usually better off for it.

I find Tomato to have a better UI and upnp setup than DD-WRT but that's a user by user thing.

Also it's probably easiest to install DD-WRT first and follow whatever instructions they have for your model. You should be able to do all of it over the web interface alone. Haven't looked into the 160N so there might be a gotcha *but* if there is, DD-WRT's router database will have a wiki article with step-by-step instructions. Afterwards you can use the firmware update page to just flash whatever else you want.

It's pretty difficult to brick a router, just try it out!

Edit: Here is your starting point.

Yours is a 4MB model so you'll need to stick to the slightly-stripped variants. Nothing you'd miss unless you're set on running a VPN client/server or something like that. Compatible firmware versions are listed on the dd-wrt router database.