Pre-install questions

[Untouchable]

Hello,

I'm about to install oleg's firmware and wondering a) if I can do all this and b) what I need to do it:

a)
1. I know I can install rtorrent, transmission or whatever torrent client on it, but... which of the web interfaces (ntorrent,...) can I use on windows, which work only on linux, or maybe some work on both? Can the webinterface be used from outside the network?

2. If I plug in a usb hdd, will I be able to access it from outside the network? E.g. by typing my ip address and some port or whatever? If yes, is there a tutorial on this forum?

3. Will the usb hdd be displayed as network drive on linux as well, or do I need to install something like Samba, but specially for linux? If yes, is there a tutorial on this forum?

4. Does the hdd have to be formatted as fat32 or can it be filesystem invariant?

b)
1. What I mentioned in a) can I do it without any additional storage space? Meaning I only plug in the usb hdd with one big storage partition and don't have to plug in an usb stick as well (or partitioin the hdd ext3, swap and storage), from where all the things I installed will run. Because I read somewhere here that if there is system on usb stick or hdd, it has loading priority over whatever is in the box. What I thought is, that the things that I need to install will be over the 32MB limit on wl500gP, so that's why the additional storage to run the system, but I'm not sure this is true.

Thanks very much for answers :)

[raas]

Hi,

Questions have been answered many times in this forum already, but here it goes:

A:
1)
The webinterfaces are 'platform independent'. They can be accessed through your webbrowser on windows/linux pc / pda / xbox / etc. as long as it is a webbrowser.

2)
If you want the files on the harddisk accessible from outside the network, consider using a ftp-server installed on your asus.. this way a combination of ipaddress/port and username/password will work to access your files from outside your network, as long as you have routed your ports correctly

3)
If you want the harddisk just to pop up in your network you need to install Samba, yes there are tutorials, take a look at the tutorial section.

4)
Fat32 filesystem will work, but you have a 2gb filesize limit. better is ext2/ext3 linux filesystem.

B:

Best practice is to use a '3 partition system'
1 small (1-2gb) partition where you install the software packages
1 small (512mb)partition the system will need for swap space (as it internally has only 32mb)
1 big (rest) partition where you will store your data.

You need can get arround with 2 partitions (data and packages together), but you will need swap space in order to do what you intend to do.
(the programs you run need memory, the asus has only 32mb of it, that's why you need the swap space.)

Take a look at the tutorials, there is plenty of information there to get by.

[Untouchable]

4)
Fat32 filesystem will work, but you have a 2gb filesize limit. better is ext2/ext3 linux filesystem.

B:

Best practice is to use a '3 partition system'
1 small (1-2gb) partition where you install the software packages
1 small (512mb)partition the system will need for swap space (as it internally has only 32mb)
1 big (rest) partition where you will store your data.

You need can get arround with 2 partitions (data and packages together), but you will need swap space in order to do what you intend to do.
(the programs you run need memory, the asus has only 32mb of it, that's why you need the swap space.)

Take a look at the tutorials, there is plenty of information there to get by.

Thank you very much for answers.

Regarding 4) What about ntfs? Using samba, will windows see the partition if it's ext3?
Regarding B) Is it possible to have a usb stick with system (ext3) and swap (swap) partitioins in one usb port and usb hdd in second usb port with storage partition? So far I've seen tutorials where this is not covered, only one usb hdd with 3 partitions. What do I need to do differently in this case? Reason for doing it this the portability of the large hdd, which I want to use of course :)

Best regards.

[raas]

Hi,

no, ntfs is not an option. The asus is not able to write to it, only read from it.


ext2/ext3 is not usable in windows by default, but there's third party software around with which you can access ext2/ext3 partitions from windows when drive is directly connected to windows pc.
(I did not investigate this myself, I don't use the drive with a pc, only with the router)


It's possible to use a usb stick with the system packages on it, but I would not recommend to use a usb stick for swap, as the swap disk will have a lot of read/write, it will eventuall die on you. (I've had a usb-stick as swap, it's nice and fast, but after 5-6 months it died, flash-memory can only be rewritten x-couple of times before it fails)

What's against a 3 partition system? you will only loose 1-2gb of a total of what? 500gb?

[Untouchable]

Looks like I'm stuck with 2gb size limit then... which is not the end of the world :)

About the 3 partition system, I'm not sure... will I be able to remove the usb hdd without affecting anything? E.g. I pause all running torrents, plug it out, plug it in again, resume torrents and everything will be ok? Same with system, if it's on the usb hdd, can I just remove it and router will continue to work normally and when I plug it in again as well? Thing is, I don't want the usb hdd to be passively plugged in there and I don't know how removing it will affect running the router or other computers in the network.

[raas]

I don't know for sure,

I think you will get a problem when you just 'pause-and-unplug'
like programs can't find the location anymore.

[Untouchable]

Oh well, looks like it will be passively plugged in, which again is not the end of the world, but not the best case scenario either :)

Thanks for your quick replies, appreciate it.