Poll: Have you installed optware on your NETGEAR WNR3500L?

I wonder what app people like to use most once they install optware.
rTorrent - ADOS - SAWANNA CMS - eset_upd - transmission - imageview - asterisk - sabnzbget - nzbgetweb - plowshare

So the real question, like 60% of the vote is. What is Optware? What does it do, is it easy to install, what benefit does it have for my network?

Andrew

For dd-wrt see:

http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Optware,_the_Right_Way

Kong, I read the article. It was way over my head so I voted What the Heck.

The Optware home page has a better explanation. Optware is a package management system which allows you to use USB external storage devices to hold router software. Instead of packing all the functionality (i.e. VPN, SSH, miniDNLA) onto a tiny ROM, only boot processes go on the 8MB ROM; software is stored on the GBs (TBs?) of an external hard drive or thumbstick.
http://www.nslu2-linux.org/wiki/Optware/HomePage

Thank you Benji. That gives me a better understanding.

The question for me now is, if all my required functionality can be packaged onto the 8MB ROM, what is the advantage of installing/using Optware?

It only depends on your needs. If you need only a router wuth extended functionnalities, then you don't need optware. But if you're using your router as a NAS you will probably want to download things directly from the router using torrent ou newsgroups (so you need a bittorrent software or a newsgroup grabber... can't be done without optware).

Some other people maintain a small web site hosted on the router: so you need optware to to install a web server. Others use their router as a VoIP device: you must install asterisk...

And sometimes, some routers haven't enough ROM/RAM to host a big version of firmware (it means no DLNA, no NAS support etc....) but if they have an USB port they can have it through optware.

You can also install various network monitoring tools and so on... See Optware site for all packaged softwares.

All above must be done thinking that a router is not a computer and can't have the same use.