Another Victim of Linksys.

Steve hath wroth:

software either. Unfortunately, mine is not the version that can run Linux as far as i can tell.

Is this a complaint or a request for help?

If the former, please submit it to Linksys via the comments tag at:

If it's a request for help, kindly:

1. Start a new thread.
2. Disclose the hardware version of your WRT54G.
3. Disclose the exact firmware version you claim is not being updated.
4. Disclose the problem which has converted your router into a helical fastener.

As far as I know, only the very latest Linksys WRT54G v7 version is incapeable of running Linux. All the others have Linux versions available. See:

Also, if you compare the firmware update history for the various bottom of the line wireless vendors, only Linksys bothers to update the firmware for products they no longer sell. You can generally get a clue about how concerned a company is for their EXISTING customers by looking at the firmware revision history. There are several vendors where you're lucky to see one revision and more commonly are stuck at v1.0 with all bugs being considered permanent.

Oh yeah, thank you for another mindless and uninformative complaint.

Jerry Peters hath wroth:

Actually, Consumer Reports did something worse to me once. I was working for a marine radio manufacturer at the time. Consumer Reports reviewed a collection of comparable marine radios. One particular model from one vendor was praised with a glowing report. Our model was treated little better than garbage. There was just one problem. Behind the cosmetic plastic escusion, decals, stickers, and package, both radios came from the same Japanese manufacturer and were internally identical. The high command couldn't believe it either, so they bought the competitors radio, and I bench tested it as close to what Consumer Reports did with their tests. Absolutely identical performance. I've had my doubts about Consumer Reports ever since then.

Some people thought you had a BEFW11S4 router. I didn't try to guess. Eventually you restated the problem, including the model.

Not until Jeff posted a URL.

I think not.

It's easy to win when you make up the rules.

What a crock.

The end result is what? That some people now realize something about Linksys that they didn't know before? The only people that followed this thread to the end are the ones who are really trying to help.

That's why, even though my typing is sometimes poor, I try to post URLs with some cogent keywords so that someone searching for this problem later might find it, instead of the gibberish that you posted.

I accept some people's typing errors as typing errors (mine especially), others I believe are doing very well at a second language.

Some others I presume are drunken trolls.

You are a liar. Jeff was wrong and you are lying about it. His answer was wrong but you won't admit it because you are a lying phony.

Now there is something we can agree on. Consumer Reports seems made for the lowest common denominator. They like cheaply made low tech products. I first noticed it when they trashed high carbon knives and pushed for stainless steel rather then the kind of stainless knives that they have now. The latest was the Dyson Vacuum which we got and love. I am sorry about being difficult.

Okay... I see now... Thanks. Bye.

"flamestar" hath wroth:

Yep. I guessed wrong. You win. Congratulations.

Unfortunately, that doesn't solve your problem, doesn't effect Linksys or CompUSA in the slightest, win you any friends, or fix your spelling chequer.

If you search my previous postings for the word "guess(tm)" with Google Groups, you'll find that I've used it 313 times in this newsgroup in the last year or so. That's 313 times that someone has neglected to supply sufficient information in order to answer what is usually a simple question. Lately, it's become so common that I've been ignoring such questions because I get tired of playing abusive, arrogant, and obnoxious expert, while trying to extract what I consider to be the absolute minimum information necessary to solve a problem or answer a question:

1. What are you trying to accomplish? (One line is fine)
2. What do you have to work with? (hardware, software, versions)
3. Where are you stuck? (error messages, symptoms, clues). There are other items that would be interesting, but these are the basics.

It's not often that someone fails on all three. Usually they manage to disclose at least one of the 3 questions. You missed on all of them. I can't figure out what you're trying to accomplish beside maintaining a dialog. You still haven't bothered to disclose the model number of your Linksys hardware. You haven't given a clear description of how your system has been "screwed". Myself and others have done an exemplary job of guessing this information, to which you've never even bothered to acknowledge if the guesses are correct.

Like I said, you win. Congratulation. Now what?

So instead of watching the ballgame(s) Sunday you've spent your time feeding trolls. Interesting.

fundamentalism, fundamentally wrong.

In one of his posts there is mention of a file GTGINA.DLL (my caps). Is linksys suppling an alternate GINA to msgina.dll? This would of course explain why people have problems logging in, but why would a vendor or wireless products need to alter Windows authentication? Why would they want to?

fundamentalism, fundamentally wrong.

rico snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com (Rico) hath wroth:

Yes, I think that's what's happening. Linksys decided that in order to impliment LEAP authentication, it needed to replace the MSGINA (Microsoft Graphical Identification and Authentication):

Replacing MSGINA is supported by Microsoft, so Linksys didn't do anything evil or devious. MS even supplies instructions on how to do it:

However, LEAP is not used or worth the effort for most users. Having a major component replaced for a feature rarely used is rather a lousy idea. In addition, there are other applications that replace MSGINA, such as PcAnywhere, Novell Client, various kerberos clients, some VPN clients, single signon systems, fingerprint ID systems, just about all remote control software, etc. I'll leave what happens to the Linksys install if you have one of these already installed an open question.

Note that the solution to the problem is apparently to replace GTGINA.DLL with the original MSGINA.DLL as recommened in the above URL under "Recovering From a GINA-related System Failure". I haven't tried it.

The vague Linksys "answer id=3536" noted above says that it was to impliment LEAP authentication. I have my doubts if it was necessary or desireable to replace the existing authentication module. It just might be, but I are not a programmist.

As for spending Sunday feeding the trools, I've been under house arrest since Weds with various maladies and am having problems concentrating. Fortunately, posting usenet answers does not require much effort and provides a suitable alternative to TV.

like you who are trolling the newgroups.

You claim to be the chairman of an online services company, and you speak to people like that. Your stock just dropped sharply.

Oh, and by the way, you just flamed one of hte most knowledgeable posters here. Congrats.

I'll agree. IIRC they were the idiots behind the FTC's audio amplifier power rating rulings (measure the power at almost the highest dissipation point for a class B amp). I take their ratings with some very large grains of salt, their methodology is many times overly simplistic. They also are "rubber room" proponents, to the almost total exclusion of common sense. My attitude is if someone is stupid enough to stick their fingers under a rotary lawnmower they deserve whatever happens.

Perhaps a bad sample or test setup error? Although casual inspection should have shown the units were well nigh identical.

Jerry

So, would it have hurt to put in the model number? Also complaints tend to be taken more seriously if you calmly state the problem. I know ranting _feels_ good, but usually does little or nothing to actually solve the problem.

Don't think I like Linsys -- made the mistake of buying a LNE100tx (?)

100BaseT ethernet card once (at least it was cheap). Getting iut working was a pain, there are at least 5 different variations with mostly different chipsets, it never did work right. I finally replaced it with a 3Com 3c905 which worked immediately. I've avoided Linksys ever since then.

Jerry

Jerry Peters hath wroth:

Chuckles. I've used about quite a large number of both LNE100TX and

3C905 cards in various SCO Unix boxes over the years. The first versions of the LNE100TX used a DEC Tulip chip, which I consider to be the best ethernet PAD (packet assembler/disassembler) chips of its day. It used the fewest CPU cycles, least latency, and was quite reliable. For Unix and later Linux, the drivers were bulletproof. I even went out of my way to find boards using the Tulip chip.

The 3C905 was mixed bag. The original version (no suffix) was a total dog. As I vaguely recall, it had a tendency to hang erratically requiring a power cycle (a reboot wouldn't work). I think the 3C905A did the same with the added non-benefit of having NWAY negotiation settle on the wrong protocol. The 3C905B fixed the hangs, but left the NWAY negotiation problem. In a Windows box, it would end up with the wrong ethernet protocol so often, that I would have to go into the advanced properties and pre-set the desired protocol. The 3C905C apparently fixed the problem, but I was so paranoid by that point that I tended to avoid them.

I had a recent experience at a local ISP. The owner just loved 3C905 cards for some unknown reason. Yet, when I arrived, where were numerous weird connectivity problems which seemed to point to the ethernet card. Instead of using a different card, I just replaced all the 3C905, 3C905A, and 3C905B cards with 3C905C cards. Unfortunately, I didn't have enough, so I exchanged some of the 3C905C cards from desktops and management stations with those from the server farm. End of problems in the servers, but the problems moved to the desktops. That was eventually fixed by using other cards in the desktops.

I've ranted on the subject many times in the past. For example:

It's interesting to see how such conclusions are generated. Reading between the lines, my guess is that you had bad luck with exactly one card and you don't know the exact 3C905 suffix. Is that correct? For what it's worth, I've only dealt with perhaps 50 assorted 3C905 cards.

So, on the basis of one card, that didn't work for you (probably because of NWAY failure), you categorically condemn 3Com. Meanwhile, on the basis of my experience with about 50 3Com cards, I was merrily installing a box of about 40ea 3CR990-TX-95 3DES encrypting cards in assorted servers without problems (except for a few that hung on boot when using PXE and required a flash firmware update).

The difference is that I didn't condemn the company. I condemned the product or in the case of 3com, the specific product version. Can you see the difference?

Drivel: This is weird. The more "feel good" pills, antihistamines, and analgesics I take, the better my spelling becomes. My head feels like it's stuffed with cotton and my brain is on strike, but my spelling is much better.

" Is is my imagination, or is your english improving?" " Nah... eet must bee da whiskeeey"

Jerry Peters hath wroth:

Don't get me started on what I think of peak music power an it's variations:

This is one case where the numbers are next to worthless.

However, I don't recall what inspired the FTC to apply guidelines. It was in the early 1970's and hi-fi was just becoming a consumer phenomenon. The problem was that so were Japanese imports. At the time, I was working for Sony Superscope, so I was in the middle of the mess. However, I was not doing hi-fi, and also not paying attention. Oh well. I suspect the rules were established to make the imports look bad in comparison to domestic manufacturers. I would have a difficult time proving that today.

I Consumer Reports defense, they have a difficult problem. One one side, they have techy types like me that want lots of numbers and rigorous testing. On the other side, they have Joe Sixpack, who just wants to know if it works. It's very difficult to write a report that satisfys both these extremes (and everyone in between). I was pleasantly suprised to read a recent review on $500 digital cameras that was amazingly accurate and quite useful without burying me in technobabble. There is hope for Consumer Reports, but I still have my doubts.

I subscribe to a rather unfashionable theory that safety devices actually cause accidents. Details on request as we're getting way of topic.

I wasn't directly involved in the yelling and screaming after the report was published. I do know that the Consumer Report reviewers were not allowed to tear apart the products unless they failed in some way, and then only to complete their test report. None of the boxes were opened. One clue is that the tests were performed by 3 different people, and the final report was written by a 4th. There's a real possibility of miscommunications, but no evidence. We were able to recover the test unit (through subtrifuge) and found it to perform normally. I really don't know what went wrong, and don't want to speculate. Strangely, the dismal review had absolutely no effect on sales, but was a constant source of irritation at Boat Shows and conferences.

Oh yes, I've a friend in the biometric biz and their product replaces the default Gina. But they really are providing an alternate 'login' proceedure and thus the need. I just can't beleive this is being done for USB wireless gizmo. Truthfully I can't say that I blame consumers who are shall we say less then pleased when this happens to them without at least an on screen warning ahead of time. I sure would never expect such. Say with a biometric device such a change is at least implied if not stated up front, but with this??

BTW I'm told it is not all that hard to code a replacement GINA, the trick is getting a good install which seems to be what is biting linksys with some customers. No idea why it is 'not easy' to get things installed right, but this is what I've been told.

Why would replacement be the default in the first place, makes no sense to me. Sure maybe if you know you want LEAP, but as you note most consumers will not.

I am so in agreement with you here.

Yeah, I picked up on that in other threads, HOPE YOU ARE SPEEDILY RECOVERING now. Ouch... (Townsend/Daltry may have been right "Hope I die before I get old': but not really )

fundamentalism, fundamentally wrong.

Story I once heard, I forget where, was that some FTC staffers picked the continuous at 80% of max rated power because it seemed appropriate. I assume that they were liberal arts types, not engineers.

Of course, it (whatever _it_ is) has all these safety features so I really don't need to pay any attention to safety issues.

How the heck can they do any valid comparison without looking at construction? For example how well are components mounted, PC board quality etc? I always like to take apart my new toys to see how they're put together, and to see how much trouble I'm going to have when they need to be fixed.

Jerry

The Linux server used an old Tulip I rescued from a trash bin at work

-- it worked perfectly. The part that really ticked me off with Linksys was going to their web pit to find updated drivers and finding that there were 5 different versions of the card. I had to look at pictures to figure out which version I had since Linksys did _not_ put such essential information on the card itself. I could never get the card to autonegotiate correctly and setting the interface up through the Windows interface produced strange results. The gui would claim I'd set the card to 100 half duplex, but the lights on the card & the switch said 10. The 3c905 (probably rev c) just worked, using just the Windows drivers at 100Mb with no problems. In fact it's still working today and it's been years since I put it in that machine. I tend to leave that machine alone, it runs Win 98SE. It's really my only Windows machine, and I find that it works best if I do as little as possible to it. In the next few weeks I'll be installing Taxcut on it to do my taxes, hopefully that won't break it.