Note: While this has worked for me on a few units it’s also resulted in a few units becoming unusable. Other people have reported similar issues.
This is my experience installing LEDE firmware on a Linksys EA3500. This is a sub $30 router available for sale on Amazon that supports 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz with enough memory for decent projects.
Upgrading the router from the stock router firmware to LEDE required an intermediate step of first upgrading to OpenWRT.
- Install openwrt-kirkwood-linksys-audi-squashfs-factory.bin on the factory firmware.
Tip: If the router stops responding after 5 minutes and the power light is rapidly blinking try power-cycling it. If that does not work and the power light is still rapidly blinking then unplug the router, and while holding the reset button in plug the router in. Keep the reset button pressed for 15 seconds and release. The router might reboot into a usable state. - SSH into the router
- Exec
opkg update - Exec
opkg install luci - Open the router admin page and install the LEDE sysupgrade firmware lede-17.01.4-kirkwood-linksys-audi-squashfs-sysupgrade.tar