Ah,
Makes sense.
I was directly googling to find out how such could be done.
I have 2 old unused linksys routers somewhere collecting dust.
But so far I found “only very limited and dedicated Linux versions could be loaded”.
So.. indeed… makes sense… your not running it on a linksys.
Very understandable a fun toy!
Depending upon the exact models and specs of your old linksys routers, you may be able to flash them with ddwrt or openwrt. Nice to try it first with old/junk hardware - starting with zero experience in such things, I managed to brick a fairly nice linksys router (that I had picked up in the clearance aisle at Walmart) on my first try with ddwrt but then had great success with openwrt on a Belkin/Linksys router (also on clearance at Walmart - I wish I'd picked up a handful of those). All of my actual junk/retired/spare routers were too low spec for that project (wireless-G vintage).
Of course, -now- I want to try what GNUser just described.
@GNUser That would make a nice wiki article.