[debian-non-standard] Some questions about Debian on Asus WL-500g Premium

Martin Steigerwald Martin at lichtvoll.de
Wed Feb 13 11:24:26 CET 2008


Am Mittwoch 13 Februar 2008 schrieben Sie:
> Martin Steigerwald schrieb:
> > Hello!

Hello Tomasz!

Thanks for your detailed answers. I am CC'ing to you personally as well 
since you did too.

> > I read your article about Debian on Asus WL-500g Deluxe and I found
> > it quite interesting[1]. I would like to run pure Debian as my ADSL
> > router to have that well known very good package management, be able
> > to upgrade and stuff. And I expect that routers will only get more
> > flash and more memory in the future...
>
> FYI, I'm running Asus WL-500g Deluxe with Sagem f at st 800 ADSL modem (it
> uses ueagle_atm kernel module) - it doesn't need any external power and
> is connected to Asus using USB only.
> Too bad it doesn't support ADSL2 and ADSL2+, so it can't be used just
> everywhere.

Well I plan on using the DSL modem from my provider via pppoe, but that 
should work via the WAN port ;)

> > From what I read the Asus WL-500g Premium would be a good choice, but
> > I am wondering a bit about the memory footprint of Debian on it. On
> > the VIA machine with iptables, pppoe, openntpd, of course SSH and
> > more getty's than I would need on the Asus (or even on the VIA;) it
> > requires about 10-12 MB which seems quite comfortable for me.
>
> It uses the same for MIPS - 10-12 MB for basic setup (SSH, iptables,
> web server, etc.). ntpd doesn't make much sense, as these devices don't
> have hardware clock - it may be better idea to sync the clock via
> crontab.

But it has a system clock I supposed? So a ntpdate on boot and openntpd 
afterwards should work to keep the clock stable? AFAIK openntpd doesn't 
fiddle with the hardware clock at all

> (...)
>
> > 1) What do you run on your Asus with Debian?
>
> Oh, I used o run different weird stuff on it. I should describe it
> somewhere on the page, I guess.

And thats just a ADSL router ;-). Well then bzr should work and if it 
swaps a bit on bzr usage, but not during usual operation it should be a 
problem.

> > 2) Did you enable the additional 16 MB? Is it difficult to do?  Seems
> > to require a few commands only, but they have to be entered at some
> > boot prompt I am not sure how to reach. Via serial?
>
> What additional 16 MB? The device has 32 MB, and kernel sees full 32
> MB.

I read that the device indeed has 32 MB, but 16 MB are disabled somehow:
- http://gersbo.dk/2006/09/wl-500gp-enable-full-32-mb-of-ram.html
- http://wl500g.info/showthread.php?t=5270

> > Do I have to use some
> > soldering to use the serial console or is a cable for that available?
>
> You need a 3.3V USB-serial cable, and you don't need to solder anything
> (on my WL-500gP there are little holes in which I stick needles, which
> are connected to the USB-serial cable).

I think I could manage that.

> > I
> > would like to avoid hardware hacks as I am not that skilled in that.
> > I feel comfortable with opening the box, but I do not like to do some
> > soldering if it can be avoided, although that 128 MB memory hacks
> > sounds interesting ;-).
>
> Hmm, what 128 MB memory hacks?

See here:
- http://oleg.wl500g.info/wl500gp_ram.html
- http://wl500g.info/showthread.php?t=12962


> > 4) Is it possible to disable WLAN so that it doesn't send anymore?
>
> Curently, WLAN doesn't work at all (unless you replace the broadcom
> card with something else), so no problem with that.

Why is that? The device - well at least the Asus WL-500g Premium - is 
reported to be supported by FreeWrt and OpenWrt at least so I thought 
WLAN would work? But I think the Premium uses a slightly different WLAN 
chip ;-)

But according to this I would have thought that even on the Deluxe it 
should be working:
- "The device is fully supported by FreeWRT."
- "Wireless: integrated Broadcom BCM4306 802.11b/g Wireless LAN 
Controller"
- http://freewrt.org/trac/wiki/Documentation/Hardware/AsusWL500GD

> I have an old USB wireless device (using out of tree prism2_usb module
> - see http://linux-wlan.org/).

Well so it would be possible to have WLAN somehow anyway. Its not that 
important for me but it would be nice to have a WLAN that I could switch 
on / off at will ;)

> For your interest: I have an old USB stick, to which I swap quite a lot
> for a couple of years - works fine.
>
> I had two or three USB sticks, including brand names, which got damaged
> after just a week or month of usage, without any swap usage.
>
> I had a short-circuit - USB-stick was read-only after that, and I had
> to reflash the router, because it didn't boot anymore.

Hmmm... any criteria to detect good versus not so good USB sticks? A 
backup would be in order. I have an quite old 512 MB one from Transcend 
which still works, but I did not use it that often. I would like to have 
a bit more storage for the Asus tough, I think 2GB ;).

> I hope it gives you some overview ;)

Thanks a lot. Looks good. I think I will order one of those instead of 
waiting for 64 MB variants ;-) (which I could order once they are fully 
supported then;-).

Ciao,
-- 
Martin 'Helios' Steigerwald - http://www.Lichtvoll.de
GPG: 03B0 0D6C 0040 0710 4AFA  B82F 991B EAAC A599 84C7
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