OpenWRT, but on an unsupported router

Everyone likes something cheap, and when that cheap thing is a router that supports OpenWRT, that sounds like a win. (Hennung Paul) ordered a Wavlink WL-WN586X3 for the princely sum of 39 euros, but was disappointed when he discovered that his device had one revolution. 2 board instead of the Rev.1 board supported by the Linux distribution. Throw it on the pile of failed projects and move on? Not at all, he hacked a working OpenWRT for the device.

It’s fair to say that the majority of Hackaday readers will be familiar with Linux, but that’s something on a scale from “Uses Ubuntu a little” to “Is at one with the kernel.” We’d put ourselves somewhere around the middle of that scale when it comes to a working knowledge of userland and a working knowledge of some of the internal components that make the operating system work, although we shy away from tinkering at that level. (Henning) has no such restrictions and adopts the manufacturer’s distribution, which is itself a heavily modified OpenWRT. We’re used to booting over tFTP, and we’re particularly impressed that it uses a Raspberry Pi as a backup host for the desoldered flash chip over SPI.

It’s a long road he’s taking to get the thing up and running, and we’re not sure we’ll be able to keep track of it all, but we’re hoping the result will be a new device to add to OpenWRT’s already extensive support list is added. Sometimes it’s a shock when you realize that this distribution is now over two decades old.