Cool tech - if it doesn't exist, somebody ought to build it

[e_pepys]

I've been designing a device in my head. This ought to exist, but if it does I'm not quite sure what it would be called or how I could find it. Maybe some of you other techies out there can point me in the right direction - or set me straight.

It started with my long-held desire for a replacement wireless router.

Comments

[osymandias]

Not quite as high spec as you're suggesting, but I do a lot of this with my router. You might be interested in the Asus WL500g series of routers, along with the custom firmware found at http://wl500g.info/. The key advantage it has over other routers that can run linux is that it has built in USB ports, so it's nice and easy to expand.

Not sure what processor is in it - mine has 32mb of ram, which isn't ideal, but...

I currently have mine running as printer server, file server, firewall and music server (using daapd). When I move to somewhere with a less weird network arrangement, I also shall have it running dDNS. Hadn't thought of using it as a web server, but that's mainly because the disk I have hung off it is quite loud, so I turn it off. If I was hosting off flash, I might well do it - I know other people have.

They are quite difficult to get hold of - I ended up paying about 70GBP for mine, as I couldn't find them anywhere.

[e_pepys]

I'm impressed that you are running so much on the router. Is it easy to add services, ie. can you log in and install stuff, or do you need to rebuild the whole flash binary each time you want to add something? I don't suppose it runs Perl, does it?

[osymandias]

Very easy to install things - there's even a lightweight package manager running on it. I don't have it running Perl, but you could certainly get it to do so with minimal fuss.

WL500g

[e_pepys]

Is this what's at Lost Hope? Can I take a look next time I'm there - after all the unmentionables are done?

Re: WL500g

[osymandias]

Sure.