Posted: Sat Jul 12, 2008 8:25 Post subject: x86 dev tools?
I've been trying to get my x86 DD-WRT to do more than just wireless networking and VPN. However the lack of ipkg support and my limited linux knowledge have all but discouraged me from trying.
Is there any way to get a compiler onto this platform? GCC maybe? With that in place one could use wget & gcc to get and compile software packages otherwise available via ipkg for other platforms.
I know the main focus is wireless, but when you have 2Ghz of processing power, 512 MB of memory and about 40GB of disk space... all for wireless access... you start looking at ways to actually make use of all that. Things like MRTG, OpenSWAN, Samba and print servers come to mind.
I mean it's already on and in my network... why spend cash on another machine when DD-WRT could potentially do all that?
dd-wrt is a wireless router firmware made for very little hardware resources with great performance.
a samba server or a printserver is something different and would compromise the idea of a wireless router/accesspoint.
if you looking for something to keep your cpu at 100% and fill your harddrive, look for ipcop and its expansion modules ... there is all you want ...
expect for the wireless support, its somewhat limited compared to dd-wrt and the software needs lots of resources ...
a samba server or a printserver is something different and would compromise the idea of a wireless router/accesspoint.
I would totally agree had it not been for the awesome support for the Broadcom routers. At the moment I have an Asus Wl-500gP that clearly outclasses my x86 platform. If I decide to switch to the x86 platform for high speed sensitive wireless then I'd have to either keep my current broadcom router as a NAS/print server/syslog server/other stuff. That and I'd be stuck with a 1Ghz sempron that literally never goes past 10% load.
I call that inefficient, especially since the architecture should easily allow for additional services. The only other software that would allow me to use the x86 to its fullest would be OpenWRT but that is clumbersome to work with. So far I found out that DD-WRT is just as good and is much more user friendly, hence why I am trying to stick with it. _________________ Q: How do I do ...? A: Read the tutorials or Search forums
i would rather suggest using a embedded x86 system like a alix routerboard from PCengines, it got also a lot CPU power and only very low energy hunger ;)
Bottom line: anything but wireless & networking on x86 is tabu, right? That sounds outright stupid seeing the support DD-WRT offers for other platforms but... I guess that's marketing for you. _________________ Q: How do I do ...? A: Read the tutorials or Search forums
As for your question on development tools, install a full linux on a virtual pc or something and use those development tools - any x86 binaries you come up with should run fine under dd-wrt x86.
I will be moving my ip accounting code to dd-wrt x86 as soon as I have the time..... i already had it running before under slax (x86), then recompiled to run on wrt54gl's hardware under dd-wrt so now i think i just need to move the old binaries i used under slax onto the dd-wrt x86 box and i'm pretty sure it'll run without modification.
