I began by refreshing my memory about the topic of wireless router firmware upgrades and found an excellent article that provides a good history and overview of the subject: The Open Source WRT54G Story.
The Linksys Routers Tricks, Tips and Firmware page provides some very useful background information.
A variety of firmware upgrade options are available, and this 3rd Party Firmware Comparison provides details about 4 of the most popular choices.
After a while I began zeroing in on a selection, and this first-hand account of someone’s experiences upgrading their own router helped solidify my choice: DD-WRT.
I quickly found a great (clear and accurate) set of WRT54G upgrade directions and shortly thereafter was back on the internet via a router that had just had the electronic equivalent of a brain transplant. After I finished my upgrade I found another page with upgrade directions that looks pretty informative and includes a photo gallery of screen-shots taken during the upgrade process.
Just in case there were any problems, I had a great router firmware upgrade troubleshooting page open for reference; thankfully it wasn’t needed.
Overall, while this wireless router upgrade isn’t necessary, it isn’t terribly hard to perform (though carefully following the instructions is important), and does provide both a better interface and some extra new features, including the ability to increase the transmitted power (useful if you have a computer that is a bit too far away from your wireless access point).
One caveat if you’ve read this far: only a few modern routers support this type of upgrade, so carefully read the above pages to ensure you have (or purchase) a model/version that will work with these router firmware upgrades that are available. If you have a newer model, the DD-WRT “micro” distribution is said to work, and if so is still likely better than the default software provided with the unit.
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