Linksys WRT54GL disassembly, look inside, and MIPS Linux!

Once upon a time there was the Linksys family of WiFi Access Points nearly everyone had. A closer look. #Ad: WiFi gear @Amazon: services.exact... You can support my work at: / renerebe
exactcode.com t2sde.org rene.rebe.de

[@Smartphonekanalen]

I bought a WRT54GS Wireless-G Broadband Router with SpeedBooster during 2005. I used it a couple of years and even tested Tomato firmware hoping to use it for access points. It was an okey router but nothing fancy. The SpeedBooster function worked best with Wifi adapter PCMCIA to notebook and it was less good with Linkys WMP54GS card.

[@AttilaAsztalos]

A small observation for posterity: the clips holding the case together ARE NOT on the top and bottom; they are on the SIDES where blue meets black, so THAT is where to pry if one wants to try prying the case apart with a prying tool. You can even see the "hook" of the black part clearly in the video if you single-frame step (using "") a little around 3:51

[@mydlinkalert4562]

I thought I was watching "Evil Abed" (Danny Pudi from Community TV show). I have 3 of these routers flashed with DDWRT. I used it as a repeater. But because these are 2.4Ghz I had to upgrade to dual band (Linksys EA6500) flashed with DDWRT to take advantage of 5Ghz.

[@andreasbaumann6943]

I'm still having two of those routers, I even tinkered with the tomato firmware once (git.andreasbaumann.cc/cgit/tomato/log). Today I'm using OpenBSD-based Alix boxes instead, mainly because configuration is so much simpler than on Linux.

[@renerebe]

nice, always a pity when platform and driver support code for such devices does not get sorted in nicely upstream and support is bitrotting and decaying like for such popular routers. Also really sad they had to produce them so cheap (e.g. with so little flash) that they became obsolete so quickly, … :-/

[@saturdaysequalsyouth]

I think Xinu runs on these routers