Hacking your $60 Router into a $600 Router

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This is a bit of hacking in the original sense of the word, taking a $60 router and giving it the capabilities of something costing in the hundreds or thousands (enterprise level).

Of all the great DIY projects at this year’s Maker Faire, the one project that really caught my eye involved converting a regular old $60 router into a powerful, highly configurable $600 router. The router has an interesting history, but all you really need to know is that the special sauce lies in embedding Linux in your router. I found this project especially attractive because: 1) It’s easy, and 2) it’s totally free.

I’ve done something similar before with the same series of Linksys router, it’s pretty cool!

What you’ll need:

1. One of the supported routers. I used a Linksys WRT54GL Wireless router that I picked up from Newegg, and the instructions that follow detail the upgrade process specifically for that router and its close siblings. If you’re upgrading one of the other supported routers, you might want to look into instructions specific to your router. These instructions may generally work for other supported routers, but I’m not making any promises.
2. The generic DD-WRT v23 SP1 mini firmware version.
3. The generic DD-WRT v23 SP1 standard firmware version.

You’ll be upgrading twice.

Pretty neat stuff, check it out and more at the DD-WRT Wiki.

Source: LifeHacker