A new router

[SHRED]

I have an old SMC Barricade 4-port router.
I'd like to leave the 2 desktops hardwired and add 1 wireless since we have a new laptop.

The Linksys WRT54GL appears to get good reviews but some have issues with the setup and that concerns me.
Anyone have this one and can recommend a simple way to set it up securely?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833124190

Lots of people do not recommend using the install CD included.
They use either Tomato http://www.polarcloud.com/tomato or DD-WRT http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

It's all new to me.
Are these relatively easy to setup and secure?

Just curious; would this router be any faster than my SMC?

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[specialmias]

Understand that you must follow the instructions exactly for those or you may brick your router. This is unlikely though. I've been using ddwrt for a year now and it has tons of options. However, it is relatively easy as everything is divided into tabbed menus . I live in a really bad neighborhood where no one really owns a computer so I just run it on WPA.

At first it may seem daunting with the feature list but it's really not that hard to use. Plus there's some guides out there on how to overclock your router using it and expand the signal strength. Although this cuts on the routers life.(My router has been running "overclocked" for a year now with no issues..)