Need a quick primer on the differences between various current flavors of open router firmware.
OpenWrt 18.06.4
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Re: OpenWrt 18.06.4
#12What exactly are the benefits of having Openwrt installed on your router? What additional functionality does it provide the average HN user?
Similar to desktop Linux, there is a package manager. Meaning you can install packages like samba, openvpn, etc...
There's also a security aspect to it. Stock firmware typically uses outdated and unsupported kernels.
Re: OpenWrt 18.06.4
#13OpenWRT is awesome. Though I have my own story of woe: they switched a very specific WiFi driver implementation to another one which completely broke my 5GHz wifi, it leaked kernel-memory until the AP became unresponsive (fast). Though OpenWRT is so awesome that even someone like me who has no experience with embedded hardware can compile a new firmware with the old WiFi driver and it worked! :)
The first gen Archer C7 routers kernel panic as Qualcomm decided to not support the 5GHz card in the driver they use (but later revisions of said card are supported). You end up needing to open the router and remove the card just to get it to boot.
That issue will be fixed in 19.07.
https://github.com/openwrt/openwrt/commit/34113999ef430ce74a...
Given that the pci card is removable, it makes sense to replace with something else.
Re: OpenWrt 18.06.4
#14Running DD-WRT on my router, currently. Would people tend to recommend OpenWRT, these days? I haven't been in the loop WRT open router firmwares in a while...
Yes
DD-WRT remains a hacky codebase with several things breaking all the time. I'm aure some people are running it just fine though.
It also uses close-source drivers for some equipment.
Last time I tried it on an Archer C7v2, the 5ghz didn't work properly.
Re: OpenWrt 18.06.4
#15I choose my routers based on if they are supported or not by OpenWrt. And for everybody that asks my opinion, too. Because they might not need/want/know/have a desire to install OpenWrt now, but it's good to have the door open for the future.
This policy has worked well for me, for home use. After the original WRT54G series, I tended to go with whatever was very popular among OpenWrt developers. I still have a few WNDR3700v2 and related later models that I got due that policy, and they still work great, including (so far) with today's update.
I've fairly recently gotten some PC hardware to let me build a much more powerful router, perhaps atop Debian or Alpine. But that's gotten pushed down on the priorities stack, when having cheap little plastic OpenWrt routers and spares works for now.
Re: OpenWrt 18.06.4
#16Why didn't the upgrade take over my OpenVPN packages? I had to install the packages openvpn and luci-app-openvpn manually, but the settings were still there, fortunately.
Re: OpenWrt 18.06.4
#17Need a quick primer on the differences between various current flavors of open router firmware.
Tomato - Broadcom only - 2.6.22/.38 kernel (with multiple patches on top).
DD-WRT - Most compatible - various kernels - some drivers are closed source
OpenWrt - Fully open (except for firmware) - Latest LTS kernels. 19.07 will use 4.14 for almost every target.
Re: OpenWrt 18.06.4
#18Why didn't the upgrade take over my OpenVPN packages? I had to install the packages openvpn and luci-app-openvpn manually, but the settings were still there, fortunately.
Stock firmwares do not include a big package like OpenVPN. Hence, it muat be redownloaded.
Re: OpenWrt 18.06.4
#19Running DD-WRT on my router, currently. Would people tend to recommend OpenWRT, these days? I haven't been in the loop WRT open router firmwares in a while...
Yes DD-WRT remains a hacky codebase with several things breaking all the time. I'm aure some people are running it just fine though. It also uses close-source drivers for some equipment. Last time I tried it on an Archer C7v2, the 5ghz didn't work properly.
Thank you.
I did some digging and my router, the Asus RT-AC68U C1, being Broadcom-based, has no working WiFi. Guess I'll stay put.
Re: OpenWrt 18.06.4
#20This week due a wifi network intrusion I bought a Linksys Wrt3200acm. It looks good on paper and it has two boot partitions so it doesn't brick. I installed a device specific distribution recommended on the forums. Well, the 5ghz wifi range is total crap with Openwrt because the wifi driver is not as advanced as the one shipped by default and with the open source driver it can't transmit at full power.
I ditched Openwrt and installed back the stock firmware. But I am returning this device to Amazon tomorrow.
Which modern device do you recommend?