said by Phil :

The WRT54GL is a rebranded WRT54G v4 and can run almost any flavor of 3rd-party firmware available (Tomato and DD-WRT are two popular choices). The WRT54GL will most likely be a v1.1, but any version (1.0 or 1.1) will be fine. Subsequent versions of the WRT54G (versions 5 - 8) use a different chip and have half the memory as previous versions limiting 3rd-party firmware availability. I wouldn't bother with any WRT54GS after version 3 which can only be had used these days.

said by Phil :

As long as it is the GL model, you're good to go. The one you linked to is the one you want.

said by Phil :

Yes. Under the Wireless tab, Basic Wireless Settings, set Wireless Network Mode to Disabled and click Save Settings.

said by PeteC2 :

antdude, for what you are going to use it for, there is no real gain by flashing third party firmware, especially as you are not even planning on using it wireless. Nothing "wrong" with doing so, but you are not likely to gain any tangible benefit by doing so.

This is not exactly a very recent router, so the firmware is stable, and not likley to be updated often at this point.

The WRT54GL is a solid, time-tested router, and should serve you well.

said by antdude :

One of these days, I will have to check out the third parties whenever I have free time.

said by Ian :

I strongly recommend you ditch the stock Linksys firmware for something like Tomato or DD-WRT sooner, rather than later. The stock Linksys firmwares for the WRT54 series are notoriously unstable and buggy.

I think I had my WRT54GL up and running without a reboot or reset for 172 consecutive days with DD-WRT. Then the power went out. And that's with doing online gaming and P2P.

said by antdude :

Really? What type of issues did you run into?

What's the differences between Tomato and DD-WRT? Also, I don't want to have to keep updating often either. I only need a basic router like I had for Netgear RT311 and Linksys BEFSX41 v1.

said by Ian :

My WRT54G (not the GL...I bought my GL specifically to run 3rd party firmware) used to crash frequently and need a re-boot. It also used to keep half-open connections open forever. So if you were using something that was making and breaking a lot of connections, like P2P, the memory would overflow.

Search this forum for other their threads on Tomato Vs. DD-WRT. Both have their fans. Both are excellent solutions for the WRT54GL. Slightly different feature sets. But both stable and excellent. I'm running Tomato now because I like the bandwidth and usage monitoring in it.

said by Bill_MI :

AntDude, Ian seems to be comparing apples and oranges (Ian, what WRT54 version?). The GL original firmware is Linux-based and from what I saw, not setup all that badly. But I'm like most here...

Trouble is, everyone seems to buy a GL to run another firmware. If you tax a router, please do report how the original WRT54GL firmware runs.

Since WRT54G version 5, Linksys firmware is compiled based on VxWorks. THAT sounds like the kind of "barely-good-enough" firmware I think Ian describes.