The other day on the Austin Wireless mailing list, a poster mentioned an Open Source project I was unfamiliar with: OpenAP.  OpenAP is a kit for installing Linux on your Wi-Fi Access Point.  Well, if you happen to have one of the three supported APs.

There are nifty screenshots of a USR 2450 booting OpenAP's special Linux distribution based on the 2.4.17 kernel.  Since it's a modern Linux kernel, your plain-vanilla AP becomes a powerful tool.  You can SSH in and set up all sorts of cool routing, traffic shaping, firewalling, security, etc.

If they can widen support to a broader range of hardware, this'll be a great tool for community wireless networks.

4:59:23 PM