The Asus firmware has been reviewed and now also the OpenSource firmware from DD-WRT has been reviewed. Next step is to load the OpenSource firmware from Tomato.
Installation Instructions
I had such good success with installing DD-WRT that I did not read thoroughly the instructions for installing the Tomato firmware on the Asus RT-N16 router.
Initially I landed on the Tomato website, located on the polarcloud.com domain. I did spend time reading and determined that for the RT-N16 router I needed the TomatoUSB branch in order for the USB port on the RT-N16 to be supported.
I found a couple of good website pages with instructions on installing the USB version of Tomato. One, Installing on Asus Routers (RT-N16 and others) was on the Tomato website itself. Another was located at Simple Tomato Firmware Install On Asus RT-N16 Router.
Unfortunately, at one point while I was reading some of the post comments or forum threads, someone indicated that Tomato could be installed directly from the DD-WRT administration screen for installing new software. Since I already had DD-WRT firmware installed on my Asus router, I quickly headed over to the TomatoUSB Download page and downloaded the latest stable release.
The Tomato Kernel 2.4 (stable) does not support the Asus RT-N16. So what I ended up with was a router that did not work. I had downloaded the instructions, so that I could read these offline, but at some point I realized the Kernel 2.6 (experimental) for MIPSR2 Routers – Ext version was needed instead.
The problem was that I had not downloaded the 2.6 Kernel. I was forced to reset my Arris gateway device from Comcast so that it was no longer in bridge mode. Once connected to the Internet again, I not only downloaded the correct firmware version, but a few others as well – just in case. I also downloaded the Asus utilities which the instruction above suggested, as DD-WRT was no longer working on my router.
Having the right version of the TomatoUSB firmware made all the difference. I still didn’t completely follow the directions, however. Several of the commenters from the above sites indicated they used TFTP on the Windows OS without any problems. So I used this also.
Under Windows 7, 64 bit, TFtp is a Windows feature you most likely will need to activate first before it becomes available. This can be done using the “Activate Windows Features” option within Control Panel -> Programs and Features.
Once TFTP is activated, the basic steps I followed were:
– Boot the router into recovery mode.
– Manually assign an IP address (192.168.1.2) to your PC using the network adapter properties.
– Use the TFTP command to push the firmware on to the router (tftp –I 192.168.1.1 put tomato-K26USB-1.28.9054MIPSR2-beta-Ext.trx).
Other Resources
Build Features Cross-reference
Tomato Status Overview Screen
The default color scheme is light-red, kind of the same color as a tomato.
Next Step
Tomato Firmware on the Asus RT-N16 Router – Part 1, Status and Bandwidth
Return to the Firmware Overview: Asus RT-N16 Router Firmware Overview
