MaximumPC 2008 09

16 |MAMAMAXIMXIMXIMXIMUUUUMMPPPCC|SEP 08 |www.maximumpc.com

DEATHMATCH

ROUND 2

ROUND 1

COMPATIBILITY

It doesn’t matter how many cool features

alternative fi rmware has to offer if it doesn’t

support your router. And that’s one area

where Tomato comes up short: It supports

only a limited number of 802.11b/g routers,

all of which are based on Broadcom chipsets.

Granted, there are about a bazillion Linksys

WRT54G routers in the world, but we’ve been

recommending 802.11n Draft 2.0 routers for

almost a year now.

There’s a version of DD-WRT for more

than 80 router models, ranging from the com-

mon-as-dirt (the aforementioned WRT54G)

to the esoteric (the Meraki Mini) to the nearly

brand-spankin’ new (the dual-band 802.11n

Linksys WRT600N).

WINNER: DD-WRT

RANGE AND THROUGHPUT

Both DD-WRT and Tomato allow you to

manipulate the radio on your router; you

can pump up the power of its transmitter,

change which antenna is used to transmit and

receive, enable Afterburner (on Broadcom

chipsets—just make sure Afterburner is sup-

ported and enabled on your client, too), and

more. We boosted the transmit power on the

Linksys WRT54GL router we used for these

benchmarks from its default value of 42mW

to 70mW. We also enabled Afterburner on

both the router and on the Linksys WPC600N

Wi-Fi adapter we used to connect our laptop

to the router. Neither adjustment made much

of a difference in our benchmark results.

WINNER: TIE

QUICKSTART^

THE BEGINNING OF THE MAGAZINE, WHERE ARTICLES ARE SMALL

Tomato vs. DD-WRT

J

ust because you bought your router from Linksys (or Belkin,

D-Link, Netgear, or...) doesn’t mean you have to use that com-

pany’s fi rmware. Any router operating on Linux (and that’s the vast

majority of them) can be fl ashed with an open-source alternative—

with Tomato and DD-WRT being two of the most popular.

The process is exactly the same as if you were installing a

newer version of the manufacturer’s fi rmware, but these alterna-

tives deliver many, many benefi ts: They can expose hardware fea-

tures the manufacturer chose not to enable (so you can transform

an inexpensive Wi-Fi router into a second wireless access point or

a bridge, for instance); off er greater control over quality-of-service

(QoS) parameters, so you can prioritize VoIP and game traffi c;

speed up your P2P fi le transfers; or simply provide a more intuitive

graphical user interface.

If you enjoy tweaking your PC’s performance, you’ll dig fi ne-

tuning your network. The only question now is which of the two

solutions is better, DD-WRT or Tomato? –M I C H A E L B R O W N

TOMATO V1.

Free, http://www.polarcloud.com/tomato