Garage sales. Garage sales are awesome. I picked up a Netgear WNR1000v2 VC router at a garage sale for $5 last year. That’s a bargain, until you realize that this router should’ve retailed for $5. The stock firmware is terribad and limited. A JavaScript bug prevents WPS from being disabled unless you visit the administration page using Internet Explorer. It doesn’t help that some of these units were modified by Comcast to only accept certain firmware updates, and then passed out like candy to clueless Internet subscribers who needed a troublesome device to scream at daily. (As if dealing with Comcast wasn’t bad enough already.)

Enough ranting. Here’s the cool part: OpenWRT didn’t support it at the time. No, wait, that’s not the cool part. The cool part is, I accidentally got a custom build of OpenWRT onto the thing after investing in a USB TTL serial adapter and flailing around with OpenWRT’s source code. Wait, that’s still not the cool part.

I don’t remember how I got it working. It was towards the end of last semester, and last semester was two forevers ago in computer years. I posted on the OpenWRT forum but didn’t get any response, and I didn’t know enough about OpenWRT’s internals to submit a patch, so I slapped my hackish build onto the device and immediately forgot about it.

But! A hardworking developer who goes by the handle SaltwaterC took the time to figure out this pesky little device and made some nice builds and patches. That’s the cool part. Thanks, SaltwaterC!

If you have one of these, don’t throw it out! They actually work great with OpenWRT, especially if you can rescue one from the bargain bin at your local thrift store.