which router

[geoffrey mendelson]

On Apr 25, 2010, at 9:29 AM, Erez D wrote:

> hello,
>
>
> i need a small linux box which has usb and/or gpio (i want it to  
> control the lights for a smart house).
>
> i heard the cheapest are routers, so i am looking for a router which  
> i can install openwrt, debian or somthing similiar on it, and which  
> is cheap and can be bought in israel.



The classic, Linksys WRT54G-L, has several GPIO ports to run the LEDs  
on the front, and a few extra. Since they are getting pretty old these  
days, you may be able to find them cheaply. Note that some models run  
Linux, some run a VXWorks built package, so check carefully. Linksys  
found that they could cut the memory requirments in half (and have  
other savings) by using a task specific firmware written in VX-Works,  
so they dropped the Linux version,

There was so much demand for the Linux version anyway, that they  
started to produce them again. Hence the WRT54G can either  run Linux  
or be incompatible with Linux and you have to check the exact model  
you have. The WRT54G-L is one of the post VXworks, Linux versions, and  
will definately run it.


My favorite cheap router is the TP-Link TL-WR541G which sells for 120  
NIS at Ivory and others. AFAIK It does not run Linux, but if anyone  
knows differently, I'd love to be pleasantly surprised.

If you don't care about Wifi, 802.11b routers are rescue from the  
trash items, and many of them ran linux, but not most. At that price,  
it's worth taking them home and checking.

Geoff.


-- 
geoffrey mendelson N3OWJ/4X1GM
Jerusalem Israel geoffreymendelson at gmail.com
New word I coined 12/13/09, "Sub-Wikipedia" adj, describing knowledge  
or understanding, as in he has a sub-wikipedia understanding of the  
situation. i.e possessing less facts or information than can be found  
in the Wikipedia.