[kwlug-disc] 3g usb / wi-fi (old thread) - perhaps of interest.

[Richard Weait]

On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 11:50 PM, unsolicited <unsolicited at swiz.ca> wrote:
> And THAT's the advantage of OpenWRT.
>
> If you have a black box that has a USB port, what it's used for is up to the
> ingenuity of the programmers. i.e. I'll bet there are many routers out their
> that the manufacturer's / software providers have enabled a usb port for
> printing / storage. I doubt that they all take a 3g/gsm dongle. OpenWRT lets
> the hardware be the hardware, without artificial restriction of the software
> the box happens to contain.
>
> But, without the hardware, all bets are off. I'll wait for the hardware with
> OpenWRT'ability. Not ready to pay $$400, would pay $200

Prepare to giggle like an excited child, unsolicited.

nbd is a deveolper of OpenWRT and posted recently in the comments on LWN.

>From the comments at http://lwn.net/Articles/369367/
Posted Jan 12, 2010 11:53 UTC (Tue) by nbd (subscriber, #14393) [Link]

"The WRT160NL is not on the official supported hardware list yet,
because it's not supported in the last official release (8.09.2) yet.
It is supported in our development tree and will be supported in the
upcoming release (scheduled for February)."

This is noteworthy, because there are outstanding issues, and reports
of "bricked" devices.  So, devs only and svn trunk as per nbd.

But what is the WRT160NL you ask?
It is a WRT54GL replacement.
It has one USB port.
It is in stock at Canada Computers for $115.
http://canadacomputers.com/index.php?do=ShowProduct&cmd=pd&pid=023687&cid=NTW.489

*scream*

So who will race me to CC Waterloo?