It seems that there is a wider range of packages available for the openwrt firmware than for oleg's - true ? I'm trying to get the Tira IR transceiver to work with my WL500GP as well as a spca5xx-based webcam, so trying to swap from Oleg to Openwrt.

Can anyone advise on things that I may miss/find more awkward/need to consider in making this swap ?

I was all set to move over at the weekend and was stopped by my inability to get a wired connection to the router to load the firmware file via. Link showed activity, but my laptop never secured an IP address - could I have disabled the ports somehow !?!?!

I don't know whether my setup is a consideration in the suitability of openwrt. I have the WL500GP wirelessly connected to a Netgear router(which doesn't support WDS) on a static IP address of 192.168.1.5. The Netgear is connected to my ADSL modem. I access the WL500 via the Netgear which provides my home wireless network, i.e. the WL500 wireless is point to point with the Netgear.