Lack of Support for Newcomers

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richlife69
richlife69's picture
Lack of Support for Newcomers

A few days ago, I was happy to find myopenrouter and its forums with the hope of getting some basic information.  But it appears that my hopes were baseless.

I first looked for and found a topic that looked like it would lead to information.  http://www.myopenrouter.com/forum/which-build-r-7000   Wrong!  All I found was a number of people asking for the same basic information I wanted and absolutely no responses from you who might know the answers.  What good is a forum if the members won't provide help?

Even the website itself is guilty of the same offense.  I immediately went to the link New to Open Source? Click here first!    but found no basic information for a newcomer.  Exploring further, I come to another link:  New & Existing Users: Welcome to the new MyOpenRouter .  Again, not a work of explanation or suggestions for a newcomer.

I suspect there are numerous "new members" who quickly either just give up any hope of getting help from myopenrouter or start by trying some flash and then tighting on their own to try to recover from problems.

So for the sake of those to, like me, simply want some starting pointers, would SOMEONE from this website please to to the first link above and try to answer the questions.  Better yet, I would hope at least some one of the knowledgeable and/or long-time members would provide the information "promised" but not provided by the two links in blue.

Here's hoping -- Rich

richlife69
richlife69's picture
And an edit option in the

And an edit option in the forums would be nice too!  Then I could change the entries "work" to "word", "tighting" to "fighting",  "to" to "who" and "to to" to "go to".

cptmab
cptmab's picture
Im new to THIS forum, but not

Im new to THIS forum, but not to Forum's in general so let me start by saying, Welcome to the *more* useful DD-WRT website for higher-end Linksys Routers Forum  (at least that's what I have been using it for).

Next, what do you want to know?

Forgive me if I insult your intelligence, but here goes:

1 - Flashing your router's firmware with DD-WRT (or any firmware other than the manufacturers default) is basically like changing the Operating System on your router.  Default Router Firmware is kind of like having windows or MACOS where when you ugrade to DD-WRT (or others) it is more analagous to changin to Linux (which, but the way, is almost precisely what you are doing.)

2 - Why?  Well, DD-WRT and others provide many features not necessarily available in the Manufacturers default firmware for their routers.  Basically, they think Home users are dumb (an many are) so they do not enable or include all the bells and whistles that their hardware CAN do.  DD-WRT gives you more functionality and in many ases better performance than the stock firmware that came with the router.

3 - Open Source - This is simply that the code is not proprietary.  You could, with the know how and tools, modify, enhance, -and in many cases jack up - the firmware.  What Kong, and other rockstars in the Open Source community do is just that.  They have the code, they think of features, capabilities and they add code to the firmware to do that.  Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.  So ultimately, "Buyer Beware"...and this is true throughout almost all facets of the "Open Source" world.  Fortunately, these guys do all this for "free".  Free to us anyway.  Donations of hardware and via PayPal allows them to continue to tinker and improve the DD-WRTfirmware to the bleeding edge of what the hardware CAN do.

 

Anyway, I have blathered on.  If you have any specific questions, by all means ask.  I will try to answer as best I can.

 

ONON
​Timberballs

 

 

 

 

richlife69
richlife69's picture
First of all, thanks a lot

First of all, thanks a lot for responding.  I'm not insulted, but as you implied, there's nothing new to me in your response.  What I would like is basic info on the relationship (if any) between tomato, the Kong release (which seems the one to go for), and the Tathagata build.  After that, I'll decide when and how to jump in.  Having had my R7000 in place for less than 2 days and with a number of other new network hardware and software pieces only days/weeks older, I'll wait for some stability before doing much.  But this is the time to learn.  

For some of the newcomers (like me) maybe this will help.  At least it's very clear and tries to make sure you can find your way out of the maze.

http://www.tweaking4all.com/hardware/netgear-r7000-dd-wrt/

 

(I've started in forums that do not appreciate links to competitive or complementary forums.  If this is one, let me know.)

 

Rich

brianli
brianli's picture
I totally agree with what

I totally agree with what richlife69 said. This forum is just like an inactive forum. Not that many people are responding or contribute their knowledge.

Hope more advance users can share their experience. Thanks.

tonyram57
tonyram57's picture
I agree also but it is not

I agree also but it is not better anywhere else.  Everyone says to flash to dd-wrt or tomato with its million different fork builds but I have no idea how to start.  Searching just confuses me more.  No one says which build is the best or not.  I am sticking with the stock firmware which gives me no real issues.

brianli
brianli's picture
You are right, it is really

You are right, it is really confuse to pick which builds to flash your router. I have flashed 5 routers before and almost brick my Netgear wndr3400.

I have 2 very old Linksys WRT54G-TM, one flashed with Tomato and another one with DD-WRT. I will say Tomato interface is cleaner and simpler, but DD-WRT hasmuch more features. I need PPTP VPN services that's why I flashed my R6700 with DD-WRT. If the users don't need any extra features, I will suggest stick with the stock firmware. At least you won't void the warranty or brick the router by accident.

rolldog
rolldog's picture
Try www.snbforums.com. They

Try www.snbforums.com. They don't specifically only cover DD-WRT, but it's a forum I've used for years to get info about anything network related. You can look around on there to see if they have any specific threads on DD-WRT, but I've actually switched from DD-WRT to a different custom firmware for my Asus router, which I got from this forum. I ran DD-WRT and Tomato years ago on my routers, but I did find the technical support hard to come by. I believe at the time, Kong had the only DD-WRT firmware. On the Small Net Builder forum, not only will you find knowledgeable people who are on it regularly, Tim Higgins, who runs the site, runs it like any legitimate business and/or website should be run. There are different types of guides to follow, reviews of all the latest network related hardware, etc, so even if you don't find a DD-WRT thread specifically, I'm sure someone would be able to point you in the right direction. Or, you can take a look at some of the custom firmwares available there, which are fully supported 24 hours a day. 

 

Good luck.