Breathe new functionality into your router with Tomato third-party firmware for popular models of Broadcom-based routers, including popular models manufactured by Linksys.

It’s a little known fact that the fimware on Linksys routers is open-source. In fact, the operating system on WRT54G’s version 4 and below is Linux. Some time ago, people took advantage of this and made their own replacement firmware images for their routers.

Normally, when we cover DD-WRT and other firmware replacements for wireless routers, we discuss flashing (or uploading) the firmware to a router. However, DD-WRT also has an X86 version that can be installed onto just about any generic PC.

Qualcomm Atheros has released the source code of firmware for two of its 802.11n wireless chips on GitHub.

Ubuntu comes with a nice application called “Hardware Drivers” (a.k.a. jockey-gtk) for installing proprietary drivers for wireless cards and other devices that lack open-source support. This is great, except when your only connection to the Internet is wireless and you have no way to download the driver or firmware you need. Here’s why this situation should change.

PacketProtector is an embedded Linux distribution based on OpenWRT, the first popular distribution designed to run on a number of wireless routers commonly found in SOHO settings. Like X-Wrt, which we reviewed earlier this year, PacketProtector extends OpenWrt by offering additional functionality to enhance network security right out of the box.

Good news for all hackers. NETGEAR launches Open Source edition of wireless-G router enabling Linux developers, geeks, hackers and enthusiasts to create Firmware for specialized applications

[...] a few wireless network chip manufacturers have claimed that they cannot release their hardware documentation or firmware interface documentation to open source driver developers because FCC regulations forbid it. That excuse is no longer valid.

As a Linux user the best way to begin solving your wireless problems is to develop a basic understanding of how wireless fits into networking and to understanding the terminology describing wireless. These links are designed to also provide a number of examples of how to set up wireless on Ubuntu 8.10, Fedora 10 and Damn Small Linux.