Best Free 3rd Party Firmware for Cisco E1200 by Linksys?

supermanu15 · May 18, 2014

I have a Cisco E1200 v2 home router with DD WRT installed as firmware, I was wondering if there are any other 3rd party firmwares where this router can function best.

I did a little research but I want to ask the community first so I don't just go and brick this stuff, please check link below:
https://wikidevi.com/wiki/Linksys_E1200_v2

But it is also mentioned that it might not be compatible with tomato firmware as stated here:
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r27781478-Linksys-E1200-Tomato-Shibby-Compatible-firmware.

So I am meaning to ask, do you guys have any suggestions as to what I can jack up into this thing? Thanks a million in advance!

das_stig · May 18, 2014

Shibby's version of Tomato supports the Linksys E1200

http://tomato.groov.pl/?page_id=69

bill001g · May 18, 2014

This gets extremely hard to say since minor variations in the firmware or changes to things like memory cause issues for certain releases. Even dd-wrt you must be careful to load the correct image. Most routers you can recover from brick state. There are very few that can not be recovered...some are a huge pain to recover though.

It is all personal preference. Many people like tomato because it is a little simpler it has fewer options so it is tends to look less confusing. The vast majority of the features are exactly the same. I know a couple of the releases have very special features like dd-wrt has the best support of 3g/4g broadband modems where things like gargoyle is the only one I know that supports hard byte/month caps on traffic.

I tend to always run dd-wrt because I in the past learned how to modify and relink my own images and I am not willing to spend the huge time again to learn another platform.

supermanu15 · May 18, 2014

das_stig :

I came across that site earlier, but it only provides the link for the v1, I have v2.

supermanu15 · May 18, 2014

bill001g :

One of the things I want to flash my router with another 3rd party firmware is to learn another platform

i am just curious. The memory is what I am also worried about, but there is also an option to download the v2 firmware here: http://tomato.groov.pl/download/K26RT-N/build5x-104-EN/Linksys%20E-series/

I am just a bit worried because it might not be compatible, a bit of confidence is there because hey, if it says v2 then it i suppose to support v2 right?

bill001g · May 18, 2014

The key is how bad the unbrick process is. Some are really easy so those you can take big risks with loading firmware

supermanu15 · May 18, 2014

bill001g :

I am not really certain but somehow i feel confident loading this up, thank you for your feedback by the way

i guess i can risk bricking this because i have 2 other spare routers lying around both from a let's say "disposable"-but-reliable -as-well-depending-on-how-you-use-it brand one with wireless G and N in the other.

One of the things i've noticed in DD WRT is that features like QoS seem buggy, when i make some configurations it slows internet connection to all end devices in the network, latencies occur too or maybe i configured it wrong, or maybe something happened during the flashing process that was incomplete i am not really sure, that's why i want to ask for another 3rd party firmware alternative so i can learn and put in there something else.

bill001g · May 18, 2014

If you try to use advanced QoS options is will always greatly slow you down. The one in tomato is even worse it trys to look inside the packets for strings of data. You need a very fast cpu and even then if the traffic rate is high it will exceed the capacity of the router. The simple filter work ok in both dd-wrt and tomato. You pretty much need to use a PC running a firewall like pfsense to be able to use the very advanced QoS options.

QoS is mostly a waste of time. You can really only control data you send and the problem is almost always data you receive. A very limited number of application can be controlled by trying to restrict outbound data to control inbound but it take very a large amount of knowledge about the data streams to set the numbers correctly. It generally comes down to one person having to not be able to do what they want so another can get good performance.

supermanu15 · May 18, 2014

bill001g :

Oh about the QoS thing, it was just something I had to bring up to remind me of the only inconvenience I have with DD WRT, it is nothing that substantial really. As we speak I am browsing through google and youtube about how tomato works and what it looks like, its features and such. So you mean to tell me I'm better off with just my DD WRT configuration in my E1200? :??:

bill001g · May 18, 2014

It is mostly personal preference and which features you need. Just using it as a wireless router they will be almost identical. Most advanced things on both devices require you to get your hands dirty and edit files in the underling unix system. IPTABLES command tends to be the most common since it is that command that controls most everything related to routing and filtering. You can load tomato and see if you like it better.

Most times I use third party firmware when I need vlan support or actual routing functions. All tend to be cryptic in their support compared to something like a commercial cisco or juniper router. You get spoiled on how easy commercial stuff is to configure and how many examples there are.

It will not hurt to load tomato but I suspect you will pretty quickly find out that you use only a very tiny subset of the features on either firmware The ASUS and TPLINK factory OS are getting extremely advanced and have many of the feature I used to load dd-wrt to get.

supermanu15 · May 18, 2014

bill001g :

Wow thanks for the information, I am learning something new

the thing is I don't think I'd be diving into those more advanced features. Ijust want to compare and see which firmware is more stable. But one of my question is since tomato is raised as one of the available firmwares, I am not sure if it supports E1200 v2 :heink:

Thank you all for your help!

cmacrun · Oct 22, 2014

I stumbled upon this thread and wanted to note that Shibby does support E1200V2, just the router listing isn't up to date. Check out the latest repo about 6 or 7 lines down:

http://tomato.groov.pl/download/K26RT-N/build5x-123-EN/Linksys%20E-series/

Looks like support for V2 goes back to at least 2012 based on what I saw in the repos.

cognus · Jan 8, 2015

Did this work out? I have a v1 that I'm wanting to flash but its failing on the current Shibby - looking for some threads on the subject. Router is in great shape and has been serving faithfully for years with the old Csco/Linksys rom. 'Upgrade failed"

supermanu15 · Jan 13, 2015

cognus :

yeap it just did and i switched to tomato firmware and have been loving it ever since!

iceice01 · Jan 14, 2015

Shibby's version of Tomato for E1200 v1 works on your E1200 v2?

supermanu15 · Jan 14, 2015

iceice01 :

I don't trust that you do that, there are 3 different hardware versions for Cisco E1200 (version 1, 2 and 2.2) and the difference between 1 and 2 is their flash memory v1 has 4mb and v2 has 8mb. I am not sure if that makes a difference but just to be safe flash the v1 with v1 firmware and v2 with v2 firmware. There should be a reason why they made a separate firmware for both versions. I am getting rusty, I should review how I did this because I forgot some procedures.

iceice01 · Jan 15, 2015

supermanu15 :

Oh, So you used the v2 firmware? But Shibby's site says it only has v1. Maybe the list is not updated because I clicked the link you've provided and I've found this "tomato-E1200v2-NVRAM64K-1.28.RT-N5x-MIPSR2-104-Max.bin". Was it the one you use to upgrade yours?
I'm going to buy an E1200 so I have to make sure that the version that I'll buy is tomato compatible.

Thanks for the help!

OrlandoMD · Oct 18, 2015

" I tend to always run dd-wrt because I in the past learned how to modify and relink my own images and I am not willing to spend the huge time again to learn another platform. [/quotemsg]"

Agreed - I've been running a collection of E1200s both v1 and v2 with dd-wrt for months.

E1200 is still actively supported with fairly current dd-wrt builds - the v1 with smaller flash (4MB instead of 8MB) needs the mini build.. the v2 handles 'big' with a few more features just fine- just install mini first, ensure working. I've layered up my home defenses. I've also deployed in Church - stacked wireless subnet 192.168.100.x (Powerline Ethernet backbone for several APs main structure, social hall, and office building coverage) and protected deeper enclave 192.168.200.x for office. Also asserting OpenDNS use policy, requiring DNS resolution through the service. No support problems thus far while asserting more security/appropriate use controls via OpenDNS.

Specific firmware builds- I've been running the following Betas:
E1200v1, mini- dd-wrt.v24-27240_NEWD-2_K2.6_mini-e1200v1.bin - running solid.
E1200v2, big - dd-wrt.v24-27506_NEWD-2_K2.6_big-nv64k.bin - running solid,
- One quirk is to ensure http (not only https) is supported for access to web management on the device.
- DSCP issue that can occur, esp with Comcast (used at Church), if your are having wireless throughput issues (dramatic slowness) apply the following fix:
- Post subject: Critical DSCP bug Affecting WiFi Download Speeds on Comcast
- http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=176395

More -
(a) Wiki- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DD-WRT
(b) http://dd-wrt.com/site/support/router-database (searching for 'E1200' and confirming supported)
(c) Specific support pages for E1200 https://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/E1200
(d) Beta Firmware - ftp://ftp.dd-wrt.com/betas/ (hosting firmware identified above)

supermanu15 · Jun 29, 2016

iceice01 :

supermanu15 :

Oh, So you used the v2 firmware? But Shibby's site says it only has v1. Maybe the list is not updated because I clicked the link you've provided and I've found this "tomato-E1200v2-NVRAM64K-1.28.RT-N5x-MIPSR2-104-Max.bin". Was it the one you use to upgrade yours?
I'm going to buy an E1200 so I have to make sure that the version that I'll buy is tomato compatible.

Thanks for the help!

sorry took a long long while for me to reply, refer to this post where i successfully flashed it to tomato:
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2149116/flashing-router-firmware.html

sorry for the uber late reply!

Best Free 3rd Party Firmware for Cisco E1200 by Linksys?

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