I have a Linksys 160NL and I'm looking at the DD-WRT software but changing to it makes me a little nervous as I'm pretty sure there's no going back. I use DD-WRT for a WRT54G I've turned into a wireless bridge and its fine but I've never heard much about the 160NL version. Does anyone have any experience with the 160NL and DD-WRT software?
Sorry, no experience with the 160NL, but I'm curious why you think you can't go back to stock if you try dd-wrt and decide you don't like it?
On my WRT54G's (v1 and v3) and WRT54GL's (v1.1), I had no trouble going from stock to dd-wrt to Tomato to stock and back to dd-wrt. Would it be different for the 160NL?
Hi, Going back? Why not? You just reflash wuth stock f/w.My WRT600N and 610N V.2 has dd-wrt. Works just fine.
There is a website for the 160nl. It includes "how to flash with DD-WRT" and from the FAQ:- "112. How can I revert back to the original Linksys firmware for WRT160NL (revert to stock firmware)?
**** DownloadFAQ #112 doesn't refer to reverting to back to original firmware from DDWRT or from any 3rd party firmware.
My concern was that because of the various prep and kill images needed to install DDWRT (like on my WRT54G v5.1) I couldn't go back to the original firmware. I'm not sure where I got that idea. I thought those special pre-images did something to prohibit going back. So.... I gather from the responses here that switching back and forth from DDWRT to Linksys firmware is not an issue?
Bob wrote:
What do you perceive this referring to? "go in DD-WRT to Administration tab - Firmware upgrade, and just browse and upload the original stock firmware."
Sorry. Somehow I didn't see that line when I initially looked at this section.
Then SHADDUP
There are no prep and kill steps for the WRT160NL. What you're referring to is the VxWorks killer, which replaces the CPE (boot loader) with one that will load anything, instead of just the approved VxWorks bin file. That's not necessary with the WRT160NL. Please make sure that you're reading the correct procedure as different model routers have radically different steps.
The pre-image ordeal process is designed to circumvent a problem with the stock Linksys firmware that limits the maximum size of the image. DD-WRT is somewhat larger than the stock firmware and will not load using the fireware update process from the stock firmware. So, it becomes a two step process. A smaller image is first installed (linksys-to-ddwrt-firmware.bin). Once that's working, the larger running image (wrt160nl-firmware.bin) can safely be installed. There's no problem going back to the smaller stock Linksys firmware from DD-WRT because DD-WRT doesn't have the image size problem.
However, if you do decide to go back to the stock Linksys firmware, and then decide to load DD-WRT again, you'll have to go through the two step process again.
Where it does get complexicated is setting up an external flash drive, printing, Bitorrent, Samba, and some customization.
Note that these are optional and do not affect the basic operation of DD-WRT. If you read the tutorial at:
only the very first step "Installing DD-WRT" is required to install DD-WRT and get it running. The rest are all the modifications which do NOT need to be un-done in order to revert to the stock firmware.
Thank you. I was never clear on why the various pre-image, prep, and kill files needed to be loaded first. I thought somehow that precluded a return to the Linksys firmware. I've now loaded and begun to play around with the DD-WRT 14311 beta for the Linksys 160NL router. There's a feature present in the micro generic version of 13064 (which I'm using on my WRT54Gv5.1 configured as a wireless bridge) which is not included on the later 14311 firmware - at least I can't find it. It gives the ability to automatically shut on/off the router radio based on time of day. For example, I wanted to shut down the wireless portion of my 160NL between say 12am and 6am. I can do that with the 13064 firmware but not the 14311 - again unless I'm missing it.
Other than issues like that, the 160NL seems to be comfortably running DD-WRT. There are dozens of goodies which aren't defined in the help pages which I'm unsure about. Guess I'll keep playing. Maybe later I'll try some of the other mods possible with resident scripts.
Jeff Liebermann wrote:
If all else fails, you can usually find stumble by stumble instructions. Some of them are amazingly accurate. The problem is that while many routers look the same, major differences in chipset, boot loaders, and board design, make it impossible to use a single procedure.
The version of DD-WRT for the WRT54G v5 and v6 mutations is a "mini" version, lacking in some features. V5 and v6 simply do not have enough working memory to install the full kitchen sink. The feature set also changed in the middle of V24 Pre SP2. Good luck decoding the mess:
As I recall (maybe wrong), that was removed in the mini version because that feature could also be accomplished with a shell script and a crontab entry. I'll see if I can find it, but not now.
The help pages are mostly intended as a memory jogger, not as a full documentation man page. Try the Wiki:
Lots in there, but watch out for old and obsolete junk that hasn't been cleaned out.
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