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Yet another ugly clone of Asuswrt-Merlin firmware (extremely outdated now)

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Kobold

Regular Contributor
Hi there!

First of all, English is not my mother tongue, so sorry for my terrible English.

Many years ago :) (Feb 24, 2013) I asked RMerlin why he wasn’t using the latest openssl and some other libs in his Asuswrt-Merlin firmware. He told he didn’t see any practical reasons to update them.

http://www.snbforums.com/threads/is-it-ok-that-asuswrt-uses-old-openssl.10089/

So I, because of being an impractical crazy geek, decided to try to do it myself. After that I updated some other libs of Asuswrt-Merlin. And some others. And others… So my mutated monster of Asuswrt-Merlin was born. After almost a year of stubborn modifying of precious Merlin’s masterpiece, I finally got what I wanted. Here it is, yet another clone of Asuswrt-Merlin firmware (for Asus RT-AC66U, so MIPS only).

What was defiled, damaged beyond repair, I mean changed:

the goal was to use the latest libs that are available, so the modified source tree is able to use the latest sources of almost all of them: openssl, openvpn, busybox, dnsmasq, zlib, ffmpeg, udpxy, and so on, more than 50 libs were replaced. Some could be used without any modifications, some required a certain amount of work to be integrated to the Asuswrt-Merlin source tree.

The most exhausting part of modification was integrating a more recent (just a tiny little bit more recent) version of kernel from the Tomato firmware (http://tomato.groov.pl/?page_id=164). Some stupid errors (or maybe indeed the most genius and crucial parts of the code) of asus code were corrected (or maybe damaged beyond repair). Html code of asus firmware UI was hugely modified. Transmission was integrated to the UI to become a built-in bittorent client. MC was added :D (It’s so convenient to use a decent file manager when you are browsing your router via ssh :D )

So, the modification brings many changes to the original Asuswrt-Merlin source tree (10, 000 or maybe even 100, 000 I don’t know exactly).

Since I quit messing with it two years ago (last build was 4/23/2014) it’s hugely outdated now. However, maybe someone could find that monster interesting. I’m still using my Asus RT-AC66U as my main router, but I have no plans to update its firmware. It’s quite exhausting to keep all those modifications synced with every new Asuswrt-Merlin build.

So, if anyone finds this blasphemous modification of Asuswrt-Merlin interesting, he can get it. I mean not only the firmware itself, but all the source tree with all building scripts.

Any objections against it will certainly be respected, so no one should be worried. Especially those from RMerlin.
 
A very interesting read. If English isn't your mother tongue, you do a very good impression of someone for whom it is.
 
Hi there!

First of all, English is not my mother tongue, so sorry for my terrible English.

Many years ago :) (Feb 24, 2013) I asked RMerlin why he wasn’t using the latest openssl and some other libs in his Asuswrt-Merlin firmware. He told he didn’t see any practical reasons to update them.

http://www.snbforums.com/threads/is-it-ok-that-asuswrt-uses-old-openssl.10089/

So I, because of being an impractical crazy geek, decided to try to do it myself. After that I updated some other libs of Asuswrt-Merlin. And some others. And others… So my mutated monster of Asuswrt-Merlin was born. After almost a year of stubborn modifying of precious Merlin’s masterpiece, I finally got what I wanted. Here it is, yet another clone of Asuswrt-Merlin firmware (for Asus RT-AC66U, so MIPS only).

What was defiled, damaged beyond repair, I mean changed:

the goal was to use the latest libs that are available, so the modified source tree is able to use the latest sources of almost all of them: openssl, openvpn, busybox, dnsmasq, zlib, ffmpeg, udpxy, and so on, more than 50 libs were replaced. Some could be used without any modifications, some required a certain amount of work to be integrated to the Asuswrt-Merlin source tree.

The most exhausting part of modification was integrating a more recent (just a tiny little bit more recent) version of kernel from the Tomato firmware (http://tomato.groov.pl/?page_id=164). Some stupid errors (or maybe indeed the most genius and crucial parts of the code) of asus code were corrected (or maybe damaged beyond repair). Html code of asus firmware UI was hugely modified. Transmission was integrated to the UI to become a built-in bittorent client. MC was added :D (It’s so convenient to use a decent file manager when you are browsing your router via ssh :D )

So, the modification brings many changes to the original Asuswrt-Merlin source tree (10, 000 or maybe even 100, 000 I don’t know exactly).

Since I quit messing with it two years ago (last build was 4/23/2014) it’s hugely outdated now. However, maybe someone could find that monster interesting. I’m still using my Asus RT-AC66U as my main router, but I have no plans to update its firmware. It’s quite exhausting to keep all those modifications synced with every new Asuswrt-Merlin build.

So, if anyone finds this blasphemous modification of Asuswrt-Merlin interesting, he can get it. I mean not only the firmware itself, but all the source tree with all building scripts.

Any objections against it will certainly be respected, so no one should be worried. Especially those from RMerlin.

Do you have a link to this FW that I can download? I have some spare RT-AC66R's that I can try it on.

How does it compare to John9527's FW 378.43_2 ver 16E1?
 
Just Checking
Do you have a link to this FW that I can download?
Sure, you can try it. However, keep in mind that standard “warranty disclaimer” that tells you that it’s up to you to decide “to flash or not to flash”. If my firmware kills your router, I’ll be like Homer Simpson: “It was like that when I got here”.

And, once again, this firmware is extremely old: 4/23/2014, ver. 3.0.0.4_374.42

http://rghost.net/6NrbcYCb7
password: asus-merlin
 
Last edited:

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