Breathe new life into your old home router
A New Route
© Lead Image © donatas1205, 123RF.com
If you have an old router lying around, you can put it to good use with a few easy projects and learn something along the way.
There are some fun and interesting projects that can be done by repurposing an old home router. If you don't have an old router lying around, you can usually find one for about $5-$25. These routers are easy to reflash, so a new programmer doesn't have to worry about messing things up too badly.
In this article, we will look at three projects to get some extra life out of an older router. The first project uses the router's USB port to connect to third-party devices. The second project collects microcontroller and internal data, and the final project displays the data on the router's web page and on a Raspberry Pi.
Selecting a Router and Firmware
A number of open source firmware solutions can breathe new life into an old router. OpenWRT [1] and DD-WRT [2] are the most popular packages, but there are other options. You need to determine if one of these firmware packages supports your old router. Keep in mind that many older routers only have 4MB of flash and 32MB of RAM. These routers may not run or only marginally run OpenWRT or DD-WRT. We recommend that you choose a router with a minimum 8MB of flash and 32MB or more of RAM.
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Red Hat Releases RHEL 10 Early
Red Hat quietly rolled out the official release of RHEL 10.0 a bit early.
-
openSUSE Joins End of 10
openSUSE has decided to not only join the End of 10 movement but it also will no longer support the Deepin Desktop Environment.
-
New Version of Flatpak Released
Flatpak 1.16.1 is now available as the latest, stable version with various improvements.
-
IBM Announces Powerhouse Linux Server
IBM has unleashed a seriously powerful Linux server with the LinuxONE Emperor 5.
-
Plasma Ends LTS Releases
The KDE Plasma development team is doing away with the LTS releases for a good reason.
-
Arch Linux Available for Windows Subsystem for Linux
If you've ever wanted to use a rolling release distribution with WSL, now's your chance.
-
System76 Releases COSMIC Alpha 7
With scores of bug fixes and a really cool workspaces feature, COSMIC is looking to soon migrate from alpha to beta.
-
OpenMandriva Lx 6.0 Available for Installation
The latest release of OpenMandriva has arrived with a new kernel, an updated Plasma desktop, and a server edition.
-
TrueNAS 25.04 Arrives with Thousands of Changes
One of the most popular Linux-based NAS solutions has rolled out the latest edition, based on Ubuntu 25.04.
-
Fedora 42 Available with Two New Spins
The latest release from the Fedora Project includes the usual updates, a new kernel, an official KDE Plasma spin, and a new System76 spin.