Just happened to be kicking around a thrift store when I spied a Linksys Max-Stream, Tri-Band WIFI 5 router in the box for 10 bucks. A quick search established it would accept the OpenWRT firmware for routers, so I snagged it.
Brought it home and after a couple of hours of careful reading and downloading firmware updates, I did manage to replace the Linksys firmware with OpenWRT.
Now the fun begins; Networking is not my strongest area, so this is going to be interesting, but for 10 bucks, I couldn’t pass it up! I hope to eventually disable my cable modem’s WIFI radio and put this on my network as an access point.
I haven’t tinkered with OpenWRT for a long long time but as I recall it’s a great way to get acquainted with networking. Very interesting OS and project. Congrats on the thrift score!
With ddwrt, I got a lot of satisfaction re-purposing an old ISP router. It had a cheesy stylized plastic case and a big orange sticker on the back claiming that altering or modifying the hardware or firmware was a felony. I would have saved the sticker but it was covering the weird proprietary screws.
I like having the bare PCB mounted to the outside of my wooden electronics cabinet with standoffs. It stays cooler and is easier to access. Sometimes you can find bonus connectors inside like jtag and fan that you can use. Mine is as old as gigabit ethernet, long abandoned by the OEM and vendor. Rock stable AP rocking 1 year old firmware at zero cost.
Just finished getting the opwnwrt on a pi4 to work with a vpn. A site that was very helpful is OpenVPN Setup guide for OpenWrt . Also had good directions from Brave AI to setup openwrt before the vpn addition. I have the text that I can send to you but don’t recall the search terms that I used.