Sjoerd Simons
January 15, 2026
The OpenWrt One is a rare piece of hardware: fully open, well-documented, and designed to be pushed beyond the limits of a traditional router. As the hardware is reasonably powerful and expandable, running a more general purpose OS like Debian on it can be rather convenient.
With openwrt-one-debian, you can now install and run a full Debian system leveraging the OpenWrt One’s NVMe storage, enabling everything from custom services and containers to development tools and lightweight server workloads, all on open hardware.
This project provides a rust-based flasher to install Debian on the OpenWrt One, opening the door to standard Debian tooling, packages, and workflows. For developers and power users, it transforms the OpenWrt One from a network appliance into a compact, general-purpose Linux system.
Key features
- Full Debian install on NVMe
Run a complete Debian system rather than a constrained embedded userspace. - Leverages standard Debian tooling
Use familiar package management, services, and development workflows. - Designed for experimentation and extension
Ideal for custom networking, edge compute, self-hosting, or development use cases. - Built for open hardware
Aligns with the OpenWrt One’s open, hackable design philosophy.
Get started
The project is open source and available now on GitHub. If you’re interested in pushing the OpenWrt One beyond traditional router workloads, or exploring what’s possible when open hardware meets a full Debian system, check out the repository, try it on your own device, and contribute feedback or improvements: