Introduction

For a long time I wanted to start using Linux at least for some of my PC activities, but until recently have not done anything real for it. My last Linux experience was years ago on university but since then - nothing. Anytime I had to do anything without an windowed environment, I felt like one-handed. Once I decided to change that it was obvious to me that I have to do something concrete, to have some clear strategy how to learn, not just try to read some boring manuals.

First I tried to install Linux as a dual-boot secondary OS on my PC. Such approach did not work for me, I was just too lazy to reboot there and back several times a day.

Second attempt was to buy a notebook and install a Linux on it. After some research I choose Lenovo ThinkPad R61 [review] with M$ Windows pre-installed (there was no variant without it, the only choice was between XP and Vista - the former was an obvious choice from the two). An ironic fact is that not only do they force me to buy OS I don't want, they don't even provide me with installation media (if I need it, I have to pay for it even more!), so I have spent at least two days making a backup of the system and creating the installation CD. So after this experience I was even more determined to leave damn Microsoft and become free :-)

I installed Ubuntu (7.04 Feisty Fawn at the time) and it was a nice surprise - almost everything worked well - I have experienced a problem with suspend but was able to solve it after some web research. Now I have 8.04 (Hardy Heron) installed and even the suspend problem was solved out of the box.

Having two Computers at home I decided to build a small network. I own the Airlive WL-5460AP - in my opinion a great piece of HW (along with Linux based fw under the covers - supporting already seven(!) modes including a simple router with QoS support, telnet access etc.), but at the time I used it as an AP for Wifi internet connection. So along with the notebook I bought Linksys router WRT54GL and NAS box WMU-6500FS. I was told about DD-WRT firmware as an alternative to Linksys original and was curious how it practically works. I am not saying that I had any problems with original fw, for me personally the firmware upgrade was just another opportunity to gain Linux experience.

After some experimenting with DD-WRT and optware packages (mc, python, subversion, ...) and using WMU box as CIFS mount for installations I felt that it is not an ideal solution - mainly because of limited RAM and the lack of swap. I thought about using network drive for swap but such a solution is little bit shaky and not really recommended. Another solution would be some SD slot HW hacking, I considered that for a while but then decided not to risk it.

Then I found that the best solution would be to let router do its job and install software to WMU box itself. I tried to find some alternative firmware but did not succeed for a while. Then I found the JoKeR's site and started to take advantage of his admirable piece of work. Later on I found out that more than just use the software JoKeR kindly built I want to build and configure it on my own. It was partly because I was still missing some specific software and did not want to bother JoKeR with more and more demands but mostly because I felt that I want to know more about how it works under the covers - such way it is much more fun for me :-)

I started to bother JoKeR (and others) on macsat forum (btw people in this forum are very helpful in many other aspects) and step by step started to prepare my own build environment. Along the way I am writing down some notes, links, solutions when something went wrong. Since on internet many people spend time to help others (and some of them helped me personally) I feel a debt in this respect. I decided to share my notes, and hope that they could help (or spare some time) someone else. I am a Linux greenhorn, so you gurus out there, please, be tolerant if I am doing anything awkward or simply wrong and please, let me know how to do it better.