installation of OpenWRT White Russian on WRT54GL

There are several different firmwares you can flash on your WRT54GL; here some examples: OpenWRT
DDWRT
Tomato
If you want to know more fifferent firmwares just google "WRT54G Firmware" or look it up at wikipedia.
I chose OpenWRT White Russian, because i think it offers most potential. It brings a (admittedly spartan) Webinterface, where you can setup the basics, for example:
Internet connection
Wireless lan Mode and Encryption
Installation of new Packages (programs)
Status (uptime, connection status, connected Computers)
etc.

The other two named alternatives have a better webinterface. Features implemented in the webinterfaces are easier to setup but if something is not implented like asterisk, openvpn, etc. it is harder to get it running.

Download OpenWRT White Russian

There are OpenWRT White Russian and OpenWRT Kamikaze.
Kamikaze is newer but i didnt find any good driver for the sd card mod working with Kamikaze yet. So I'll stick to White Russian. Download the file openwrt-wrt54g-squashfs.bin from http://downloads.openwrt.org/whiterussian/newest/default/.

Flash White Russian onto the WRT54GL

Log on to your routers webinterface. If you dont know howto log on to your router set the lan connection on your computer to dhcp and look up which ip your gateway has. Type that ip into your browser. If you dont know the password look in the routers manual.
Unplug every cabel from your WRT54GL besides the power supply and the lan cabel to your computer. In the webinterface look around for something called "install new firmware", "flash routers firmware" or something similar. Then flash the file openwrt-wrt54g-squashfs.bin . This may take a while.

Be patient!
As soon as it's ready the WRT54GL reboots and we may login to the new webinterface. It asks us to set a new password.

If something didnt work like expected try to flash WRT54GL with TFTP.

As soon as we set the new password we are able to login via ssh

.