What is dd-wrt?

DD-WRT is a third party developed firmware released under the terms of the GPL for many 802.11g wireless routers based on a Broadcom chip reference design. For a list of supported devices, please see the Supported Devices page.

The firmware is maintained by BrainSlayer (mailto:brainslayer@braincontrol.org) and is hosted at dd-wrt.com (http://www.dd-wrt.com/). The first versions of DD-WRT were based on the Alchemy Firmware from Sveasoft Inc (http://www.sveasoft.com/), which is in turn based on the original GPL'd Linksys firmware and a number of other open source projects. DD-WRT was created directly from Sveasoft's software decision to start charging for their firmware, closing the door to opensource.

At present DD-WRT is available for free although a different business model is being drafted (http://forum.bsr-clan.de/ftopic4612.html) by BrainSlayer in order to pay his salary, as this is his full time job.

The new version of DD-WRT (v23) is a completely new project. DD-WRT offers many advanced features not found in the OEM firmwares of these devices, or even the firmware available for purchase from Sveasoft. It is also free of the product activation or tracking found in the Sveasoft firmware.

Note: Beta firmware, by its very nature, will contain bugs. It is not recommended to install beta firmware on large networks that are used for businesses, etc. However, there is now a bugtracker in place for DD-WRT firmware located here: DD-WRT Bugtracker (http://www.dd-wrt.com/dd-wrtv2/bugtracker/).

Among other features not found in the original Linksys firmware, DD-WRT adds the Kai Daemon for the Kai Console Gaming network (http://www.teamxlink.co.uk/), WDS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_Distribution_System) wireless bridging/repeating protocol, Radius Authentication (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RADIUS) for more secure wireless communication, advanced Quality of Service controls for bandwidth allocation, and software support for the SD-Card hardware modification.