routers & 3rd party firmware

[gmbz]

Hi everyone,

I was thinking on adapting a router’s firmware, so that I could turn it into a sort of “very low cost” PC (price is an important issue, but I’m willing to spend up to 100€…). My aim is to collect signals from a set of sensors (Ethernet and/or USB) and broadcast them on the internet.

I haven’t yet chosen the router to use, neither the 3rd party firmware to run with it. As I’ve no experience on the matter, I was wondering if someone as already done something like this or has some kind of advice on the equipment/firmware to use (or not to use).

(As for a reference, I’ve been looking for ASUS WL 500g Premium, Linksys WRT54GL and Netgear WGR614L – what do you think of these?)

Thanks for the help

 

[valentin]

Perhaps Asus WL500G Deluxe would be the best, its USB port can be used to share hard drives and printers.

It is a computer in a sense, but with very small memory, so it is not easy to load drivers for additional devices - if there are drivers at all for the variety of Linux installed on the router. You need to search in the specialized Asus forums.

If you can get by with the larger size, you could build a mini computer using an ITX board and install Linux or Windows. Even better, why not buy an Acer Aspire mini PC, or Asus EEE box, or MSI nettop.
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