# I've Installed libreCMC

libreCMC is a fully free as in freedom distro for routers. Think
of Trisquel or Hyperbola, but for routers. Similar to OpenWRT, but
OpenWRT contains some proprietary blobs.

http://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.html#small-distros

I bought Netgear WNDR3700v4 to use libreCMC. It is an unofficially
supported hardware.

https://librecmc.org/fossil/librecmc/wiki?name=Supported_Hardware

Why I chose Netgear is that you don't have to use TFTP, SSH, &c.
to flash firmware. Just drop the firmware file on the firmware
upgrade page that the router officially provides. If you use a
TP-link router instead, you have to use TFTP. And WNDR3700v4 is
basically the most powerful hardware without a need to replace a
non-free wifi card.



## Some advices

The default Netgear IP was 192.168.1.1, but libreCMC uses 192.168.
10.1. I wasted some time because of this. Don't be like me.

libreCMC comes with LuCI web interface. It is REALLY fully free as
in freedom. You can see and modify everything about the router.
You can even remove the kernel and brick the router.

libreCMC uses opkg for the package manager. Note that when you
remove a package, thoroughly check the dependencies. I bricked my
router several times because of this. All I wanted was just debloating
but somehow it removed some kernel modules :(.

If you are going to upgrade the firmware, don't keep the settings.
Instead, just backup the settings and flash without keeping it and
restore the settings. Usually when you do some experiments with
libreCMC, keeping the setting bricks the router because of the
incompatibility.


### Unbricking

If you bricked your device, the first thing you have to do is
rebooting and pushing the reset button. If you succeed, the firmware
will flash the original factory image.

However, if you were like me and did some idiocy to experiment the
system, the factory image might have been gone. But don't worry,
if it was not an actually serious situation, it will go into the
failsafe recovery mode if you push the reset button. You can see
that from the blinking power LED. Then there are some unbrick tools
for you. For Netgear devices, it was nmrpflash:

https://github.com/jclehner/nmrpflash

I don't know about other routers, but I guess they have their
versions of unbrick tool too. Then just flash the factory image.

If you can't go into the failsafe mode, then try to connect to the
bootloader. If you suceed, you can install the factory image via
bootloader. The process would be similar to OpenWRT unbricking.
Fortunately, I haven't entered this level.

If you broke the bootloader, congratuations. You have hardbricked
the router. At this level, all you can do is hardware flashing just
like Coreboot. I don't know, it seems that there are some options
like JTAG port, desoldering the flashchip, UART serial boot, &c.
But I don't have any of these knowledge so I can't say anything.
Good luck.