dd-wrt

I fried my wireless usb so I decided to set up an old WRT54GS router with dd-wrt and use it like a wireless card.

You can't just go in and install any old dd-wrt willy nilly.  You have to find your router on the dd-wrt web page and pick just the right one to flash it with.  It can't take the full size standard software right away, you have to flash it with something else first, something smaller  and then flash again with a full size fully functional version.  No sp1, which won't work as a client bridge, but sp2, which I guess is what they offer by default on the page for my router.

I followed the steps in the client bridge wiki and when I got to the part about changing the ip of the router to 192.168.1.6, I tried to log back into the router and instead I was logged into my main router,which I thought couldn't happen since I always set them to only be accessed by a wired connection.  Imagine my shock when I saw I had logged into my main router.  Netmagic, which still wants me to buy it can see every computer that was ever on my network and one thing I wasn't sure what it was but decided it had to be the blu-ray player.  Netmagic also said I was on the internet, which I was not.  I can see the router and every other computer in the house but I am not on the internet yet.

I shut off the main router and then was able to log back into the dd-wrt router and change it's ip and once I got everything back up, everybody can see everybody, but the dd-wrt router is still not connecting to the internet.  And I can't access the printer from the rest of the house, either, so I am about ready to abandon this whole thing and buy a new usb wireless adapter and get my network back up for real.

I would buy Netmagic if I actually were connected to the internet on that computer but I don't care for software that lies to me and I am thinking it is time to remove it from that computer for good.

I was also frustrated because I could not find where to change the channel in dd-wrt and ended up changing it on the main router which still did not result in getting the dd-wrt computer on the internet.

I saw a "networking for dummies" section in the dd-wrt wiki, maybe I should read that before I give up.  I always think there is something really simple and stupid I am missing when I am trying to get things like this to work.