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★★★★★
This is really the *original* WRT54G
This new "L" model has the same Flash and RAM capacities as the older WRT54G models that ran Linux, and thus will support freely and commercially available third-party Linux-based firmware upgrades (voiding the warranty, of course).
Some background and history can be found here:
LinkSys courts Linux hackers with WRT54G"L"
[...]
LinkSys also offers a WRT54GS "speedboaster" model that uses channel bonding with I believe both A and G signals, to realize faster throughput in some use cases. Some older WRT54GS models were available with 8MB of Flash and 32MB of RAM, while current models have 4/16, and thus will also support fancy firmware upgrades, such as those from [...] [...] [...] and so on. These firmwares offer things like optimization for VoWiFi (voice-over-wifi), integration with Radius authentication, bridging, etc, etc, etc.
Techie knitty-gritty on all the various permutations, serial number sequences, and so forth can be found at James Depew's unofficial LinkSysInfo.org site.
December 2005 · Electronics