Glad you got it working but def overkill, the DIR-880L with DD-WRT would have done the job for sure!
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What is this overkill you speak of? I was contemplating getting a Ubiquiti Dream Machine. 
$299 for WiFi 5 only? What’s the new thing aka the future, 6e?
If I got it, it would be because I’m working from home 100% going forward and it would be primarily to have 3 separate VLANs: home, work, IoT.
Probably right but it turned out there was not a version of DD-WRT for the hardware version I have on my 880L. Additionally, the ER-4 makes it very easy to set up a dual WAN as well as a VPN, both of which I’m interested in.
Looking that up, I still don’t see that it’s suitable for V2 hardware. I appreciate your help but at this point, I really don’t want to spend my time trying to get a beta version of firmware working. The ubiquiti is doing quite well.
The A2 hardware is the same as the A1 hardware for the DIR-880L. All new DD-WRT firmware is “beta”, there hasn’t been a “stable” release in years, like over 5 years. That said I’ve been running DD-WRT on the A2 version for over 5 years. I’m running a March 2021 beta right now, no issues.
If you want to go play around, it will work.
Sadly ftp://ftp.dd-wrt.com/stable/ date back to 2008 and have not kept up with modern hardware. Many pages, in bold, strongly suggest not to use the router database. “betas” have been regularly released since 2010 ftp://ftp.dd-wrt.com/betas/
Here’s an archive of kong’s personal builds as he’s moved exclusively to open-wrt Index of /Kong_PTB
Although I’m currently running freshtomato, I’ve happily run dd-wrt on my original wrt54g (still have), 2 other Linksys routers (1 died other in storage) and on my Netgear.
I don’t think you can go from factory firmware to DD-WRT with Kong’s builds though?
You can’t with with straight-up dd-wrt either. If you drill down to any directory, there’s a from factory initial flash
- I don’t provide factory to dd-wrt for non Netgear models
since I do not own any non Netgear Broadcom units
above from Kong README… not that you can’t, just suggest get a stock dd-wrt initial flash, then Kong’s
I kinda think it has to do with what platform it’s built on as with many 3rd party firmware, and generally have a back-to-factory package flash as well. Since much of the hardware, and in turn it’s abilities other security update, I’d agree newest builds aren’t necessarily better than one from a year ago for a 3yr old router. Once you’re out of factory, you can flash from there.
Me, personally, I found dd-wrt’s UI to seem dated for the most part, not that it really had much impact on function. I found freshtomato, with a modern look and some of it’s development does focus on UI improvements, but that’s me. I certainly don’t find the fancy stuff from the factory useful, often more of an hindrance so it’s not my focus.
A struggle a user will have not just with dd-wrt, but overwhelming with it - support. Try searching and you find answers from 5-10yrs or more ago which are long useless… Info for current builds and modern hardware is buried deep spaghetti’d support forum.
I used dd-wrt years ago on an old blue and black linksys router which was plugs into an actual wirespeed modem. At the time dd-wrt was much more stable then most manufacturers router software.
But it’s not for the novice or the timid or the easily frustrated. As long as it has the functionality you are looking for, the UI is unimportant. You should be able to set it up via the UI and if it works forget about it. If things are working I have little need or spare time to be poking around in my routers UI.
I stopped using it because manufacturers router software became much more stable and it had a ton of features I didn’t need or want.
Sometimes you can’t always be sure it’s working just right with out looking around… like the guy who’d like to know if a device has rebooted or even uptime.
No, UI isn’t priority, but if it’s not important to developers in the past 15 years… uhmmm. I agree with Zippy, dd-wrt isn’t for any/everyone “just because”. It may be less frustrating if the UI were more intuitive to someone less than a network engineer. There’s always the disclaimer - use at your own risk, you could render your device useless aka brick’d
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