Openwrt 18.06.2 released | Hacker News Reader

Openwrt 18.06.2 released

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181 pointsausjke129 comments

Openwrt is so nice. Despite small teams and budgets, they power so many routers and are also good at research and new features. The sqm/fq_codel stuff alone makes it worth running openwrt. If you are not familiar with it, go to dslreports.com and run a speedtest. If you get a poor bufferbloat score, openwrt can help. A lot of vendors (even big enterprise ones) use openwrt builds for their products, but don't provide updates, documentation or sources to their customers. You'll see a lot of devices running old openwrt in the wild.

wrt bufferbloat: my internet is too fast (150 mbps) for a cheap router to effectively manage the connection, meaning that unless i pay 250€ for a router, I will just slow down my Internet needlessly.

I have 150 Mbps and a sub $50 router (ac-68u commonly sold by t-mobile on clearance as tm-1900) does fine with sqm without any significant loss in speed. Note that this has no open wifi drivers. So you'll need a separate AP, or use a more blob friendly distribution like dd-wrt. Or use two of these, one with blobs as AP and one without blobs running openwrt. That was a great combination under $100.

To be honest, that router costs 28 000 RSD ( https://www.gigatron.rs/ruteri/asus_dualband_wirelessac1900_... ) which translates in EUR to 236 EUR, so your point is not valid for outside of the USA. To get a feel for a router that costs exactly €50, see TP-Link MR3420 V5. Also, the router you mentioned (ASUS RT-AC68U has a dual core 800 MHz Broadcom processor and 256 MB RAM and 128 MB Flash storage, while most routers at 50€ have a 400 MHz Ralink/Mediatek Processor (single core) with 32MB (at most 64 MB) RAM and 4 or 8 MB SPI memory. ) I'm glad you happen to live in a country where you can obtain such a router for so little, I am not so lucky, so I use my ISP provided one that barely manages that 150 Mbps (thankfully with a Gigabit port (yes single LAN port)).

Yes, this is the discounted price because the hardware is a bit old. However, I think there are some decent affordable routers around the world. More so if you are open to ordering from China. I haven't been following the ultra cheap space too much, but you should definitely check out the forums. There are also APU2 boards (https://www.pcengines.ch/) that may provide a good bang for the buck. There's also old x86 hardware if you don't care about power consumption.

The only thing I've found that is acceptable to me is this: https://mikrotik.com/product/hap_ac2 (or "RBD52G-5HacD2HnD-TC", ... damn, don't they love the long-ass names). 128 MB RAM, Qualcomm processor quad core at 700 MHz (but ARM! :) ) and 5 gigabit RJ45 ports + Dual Band WiFi and a USB port! Plus, even if I can't get OpenWrt to work on it (though I prefer it), I can find my way with Mikrotik's RouterOS. I actually recently setup a PTP link at 3 km with 2 SXTsq's. Though I expected 100 Mbps, it only ended up being 72 Mbps stable, more than that and there's problems with the connection. I liked the old SXT more, you could put OpenWRT on it, the new ones use weird flash memory which OpenWrt can't write to...

edit: forgot to mention, it's 60€ brand new from a friend who works at a WISP

What is " 4 or 8 MB SPI memory "? Why using SPI to qualify memory ? Are you trying to something like SD and friends?

It's just the interface, serial peripheral interface.

The firmware for routers like this is stored on SPI flash memory, and the size of the SPI flash chip determines how easily you can fit third-party firmware like OpenWRT on the router and how many compromises are necessary to do so. It's soldered on so not really user replaceable.

I am sorry mate, but this is not true. I have a connection that is 220 down and 12 up and my C7[-v2 can run SQM and I can get 190 down and 11.5 up. Set your Queue setup script to piece_of_cake.qos:

Again, a 128 MB RAM and 720 MHz CPU which is not Ralink/Mediatek. This is not a fair comparison. And the C7 costs 120€. http://www.netiks.rs/tp-link-ac1750-archer-c7

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/TP-Link-Archer-C7-AC1750-Wireless... £63 For MediaTek what about the c50? https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/TP-Link-ARCHER-C50-AC1200-Mbps-Wi... £23 I am not shure what ver this one is tho v1 and v3 of the c50 work with OpenWrt.

I'd rather not Mediatek, I'll try to find the C7 used or brand new but opened box on ads, if not, Mikrotik...

150 mbps can be managed easily by an Archer C7 or one of many other QCA ar71xx based routers, which can be picked up for under $50 nowadays.

The Netgear R7800, while a bit more expensive ($150), is still cheaper than the price you mention, and is very powerful and able to handle gigabit speeds easily.

Netgear R7800: Again, $150 in USA, €280 in Serbia, €250 in Hungary, etc...

Hungary is part of the EU, can't you order from germany or austria where it's 170€?

customs. i'm in serbia but i can get anything from hungary via a friend.

but this arrangement doesn't allow your hungarian friend to order from other EU countries?

technically no, it's only cheaper as he bribes the customs in serbia and gets VAT back in hungary. it's already as complicated as it gets.

ebay.com

Guess your customs are not equal 80-90%.

have a look at ubiquiti routers: their edge router lite is capable of handling gbit, and can protect against buffer bloat at up to 100mbits/sec. the only doznside is that they are harder to manage than the average consumer router

They cost about $100

will do, that and mikrotik. i think i can manage managing it fine, i've worked a small bit with mikrotik

For that matter, it looks like most of the Mikrotik routers can actually have OpenWRT installed on them, though not all of them have device-specific pages in https://openwrt.org/toh/views/toh_available_864?dataflt%5BBr...

Edit: wups, misremembered Serbia as Slovenia. More like 160 Euro in Serbia: http://www.sampro.rs/Proizvod.aspx?kid=162&pid=33332&name=Mi...

Edit2: Arrgh, and didn't read far enough on the thread before sticking my foot in it where you otherwise discuss the Mikrotiks.

(previously) Going up to the question of Slovenia higher in the thread, there's a Slovenian vendor who has the "hAP ac" (dual band, gigabit, SFP, USB port) for 121 Euro (https://www.virtua-it.si/izdelek/mikrotik-routerboard-hap-ac...) along with other less-capable and cheaper models.

Netgate makes some very nice appliances. For example:

https://www.netgate.com/solutions/pfsense/sg-1100.html

The edgerouter lite is quite old at this point and if the purpose is to use QoS to manage buffer bloat then the EdgeRouter X which is only like $50 would be faster. The edgerouter lite is of limited use for new installations nowadays.

After getting my TPlink router bricked and not having soldering skills for Serial UART. I got fed up and built my own router which never gets bricked:

I bought Orange Pi3 (38 USD) from AliExpress.

Orange Pi 3 H6 2GB LPDDR3 8GB EMMC Flash Gigabyte Ethernet Port AP6256 WIFI BT5.0 4*USB3.0 Support Android 7.0, Ubuntu, Debian https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/bfPcZFXS

It has Gigabyte ethernet Port and USB3 capable of delivering 5gbps. (Superspeed Mode)

And I bought 1300mbps WiFi dongle (15 USD) from AliExpress:

CF-WU782AC USB 3.0 1300Mbps Network Card Wireless WiFi Adapter+Dual Antenna High Speed 5Gbps Net card https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/cGawgQRQ

I used this to build a router. Setup Hostapd + dnsmasq

Alternatively run Pihole and your custom iptable rules

I get around 900Mbps (5Ghz AC network) on WiFi to all my rooms.

Build your own router!

Why do you guys still buy overpriced routers? What advantage do you've over my custom built one?

A couple of reasons. First, up until recently you couldn’t buy good hardware to build your own router, that was cheap and had gigabit or faster Ethernet. Second, support. If something happens to me or I am traveling, I want others to be able to figure out wtf is going on. Third is that I might want more than one AP and I might want to install them in places that are not great for home built looking hardware.

My current setup is a TP-Link router with OpenWRT, and UniFi access points for Wi-Fi. The UniFis are really nice because they are PoE, so I only need to run a single wire to where they are installed.

That’s not to say that what you did was wrong. It’s super cool! Just not a one size fits all solution.

It does sound nice, does it handle multiple clients? Not a ton, but most of the day I have around 10 clients connected.

I'd really like to upgrade from my aging RT-N66U

I've tested it with 20 devices, works fine

Sounds good, but all these noname Chinese boards literally have no support and no updates. If something serious like KRACK attacks will come - good luck to patch it all.

Wifi over USB? Thanks, nope.

What's wrong with USB WiFi if it has USB3, capable of 5Gbps?

Usb 3 is duplex.

I don't understand the bias against USB either. USB 3 is pretty good for this kind of thing.

Just to add up, an old and obsolete atom-based netbook is a super powerful platform for OpenWrt that you may already have lying around. If it's not too old and you tweak the BIOS and configure power management, it will draw not too much electricity. x64/x86 OpenWrt targets work great, you just need to be careful with the WiFi hardware regarding driver compatibility. Consult wikidevi.com and OpenWrt wiki. It may even be possible to use an integrated wifi.

If it's not enough, you can try to run OpenWRT inside a VM/LXD container and use a host OS for the greater good. It's lots of fun!

Thanks for the tip on the dongle.

This is a provocative comment although it begs the question:

Can you easily run OpenWRT on Orange PI 3 immediately after purchase?

If not, I think that could be a factor in why someone might pay more. They might want to leverage the work of OpenWRT developers.

I too recently picked up another pocket-sized SBC with Gigabit Ethernet. Compared to Orange Pi 3 it has two additional Ethernet ports, better antennas (no dongle needed), more TF card storage (128GB vs 64GB), well-tested OpenWRT support and everything to build from scratch is on Github. Like Orange Pi 3 it uses U-boot and one can easily recover from accidental bricking without opening it up.

Also has customer support, automatic updates and an additional GUI which are not things I needed but probably increased the price.

Orange Pi 3 has a GPU, HDMI port and jacks for audio and composite video. Is the buyer intending to "build a custom router" paying for specs she does not need?

What is the estimated power consumption for Orange Pi 3?

What are some examples of "overpriced routers"?

Imagine for the sake of argument we posted specs for various SBC's here without giving the "brand name" and let readers bid on what they would be willing to pay. Assuming readers could not see each others' bids, how widely would the bids vary?

Is each spec worth the same to each buyer? Do all buyers have exactly the same needs?

> I too recently picked up another pocket-sized SBC with Gigabit Ethernet. Compared to Orange Pi 3 it has two additional Ethernet ports, better antennas (no dongle needed), more TF card storage (128GB vs 64GB) and well-tested OpenWRT support.

What is it that you purchased?

I had the same reaction. This was one of the strangest omissions. I was certain there was going to be a neat plot twist at the end...

I like GL.iNet routers: small, inexpensive and come with OpenWRT. I was very happy with my AR300M until it started getting unstable after a few months: need to hard reboot it every couple of days. Not sure if I'm unlucky or if it's inherent to inexpensive routers.

Maybe one of https://openwrt.org/toh/views/toh_available_864?dataflt%5BEt....

How did your TPLink get bricked, as a matter of interest?

Installing openwrt got it bricked.

>A lot of vendors (even big enterprise ones) use openwrt builds for their products, but don't provide updates, documentation or sources to their customers.

Case and point, Ubiquiti networks is once again flagrantly violating the GPL. Their AmpliFi product is basically just a reskin of OpenWRT but they won't provide the source to it.

AFAIK their edgeos is based on vyos, but I have no experience with their amplifi line

It's based on Vyatta, they've had it going since before the split into Vyos but as I understand it there was some collaboration between projects as they are both forks of Vyatta.

Cite?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Ubiquiti/comments/8e0w38/mesh_wifi_...

It's been well over a year.

The new release still works fine on a TP-Link TL-WR1043N/ND v1 (32MB RAM, 8MB Flash). This is an old router I got from the local reuse center for $10 a few years ago. It can handle a 100 Mbps fiber connection fine and has 5 gigabit ports. Thanks Openwrt !

Personally, I prefer to use each platform for their strengths.

I was looking for a good router which could handle high VPN speeds, while still being usable. I found for 50 bucks on ebay a "thin client" which sported an AMD cpu with AES hardware acceleration, and a PCIe socket to put an Intel 2xGBit PCIe card I had lying around. Installed pfSense on it. Works flawlessly. Use few watts (because thin client).

I then found for 50 bucks on ebay a Ubiquiti Unifi AC.

I haven't messed too much with it actually, because I find crazy you need to install a whole Java suite with Mongo and everything to just run the Unifi Controller to be able to configure a bit the Unifi Access Point. I'm considering putting OpenWRT on it. Though I think I will still try this Unifi Controller, because of the advanced guest capabilities, which is still not as good on OpenWRT.

And then I bought a Ubiquiti Nanostation AC for a Wifi bridge.

For this one, I indeed replaced official firmware with OpenWRT because I can't stand that Ubiquiti makes standard Wifi unusable to push their "Air" technology. I want standards before anything else.

In the past, I "resurrected" cheap TP-Link MR3420 I had for an other project, which were bricked. Amazing that after all those years, I could still reuse hardware thanks to opensource software !

So yes, a BIG thank you to OpenWRT developers ! If any of you are out here, please receive my gratitude =)

For people Wanting a cheep router to run OpenWrt look on ebay for TP-Link C7 or WD-N750 The N750 is not AC tho. All my routers can run SQM on my internet and it is 220 down and 12 up.

I have a C7 with OpenWrt, but: If your internet is fast, OpenWrt is not good on the TP-Link C7, see this issue: https://forum.archive.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?id=53703. I downgraded my internet from 1gbps to 500mbps because of this issue (still plenty fast, not complaining :D)

Hi in the new build of openwrt you can use Software flow offloading.

Thanks, I tried this build: https://github.com/gwlim/openwrt-sfe-flowoffload and speeds are much improved (more than 2x, I'm getting 893.1Mbps downloads now).

I'm not sold on the C7. I bought one, ran openwrt on it for a couple months and my children and their i-devices routinely swamped the wireless. I upgraded to a WRT3200ACM and am much happier with how it handles a large number of connections and I have no more issues. I think the C7 is a bit underpowered these days.

I’m not too sure about my Archer C7 (v2). My internet connection is 400/20 and I only ever see 250-265 max down, via Ethernet.

I need to disconnect everything and go direct to the modem but I really think the C7 just can’t handle it. Running DD-WRT with a modern cable modem.

Hi your c7 will not do thoes speeds with SQM the cpu is not fast enough. If you are running OpenWrt 18.06.2 you can use softwair off loading. Go to firewall and tick the box for it, but make shure you disable SQM first and it will get full speeds.

Anyone know a decently priced router with 802.11ac and hardware encryption that can run OpenWRT? I currently have an TP-LINK Archer C7 with OpenWRT but VPN performance is abysmal. I don't know if my router has any hardware decryption (I would assume not) but if it does OpenWRT can't use it.

Asus RT-AC58U is well supported by OpenWRT (with a bit more involved installation) that uses a SOC (with 4 core ARM CPU) that is well mainlined so crypto acceleration should work. It is available for 75 €. More information on https://openwrt.org/toh/hwdata/asus/asus_rt-ac58u

Not sure about hardware encryption but T-Mobile often offer new/refurbished TM-AC1900's for <$40, which you can easily flash to an RT-AC68U. I believe the RT-AC68U has limited support with OpenWRT: https://openwrt.org/toh/asus/rt-ac68u, but performance has been really good for me considering the price.

edit: disregard the above. It looks like Broadcom chips can only run on the 2.4 GhZ b/g spectrum.

The might be some good used Ubiquiti devices on ebay.

I just found out that the Archer C7 now has support for both Qualcomm SFE and hardware decryption. No official builds yet (all official builds for the C7 are based on kernel 4.9 while SFE requires 4.14), but I found this: https://github.com/gwlim/openwrt-sfe-flowoffload

For me the speedup with SFE is almost x2, haven't tried hardware encryption yet.

With this, I would say the C7 is an excellent router for OpenWRT.

Couple of weeks ago bought Netgear 4300 N750 (300Mb+450Mb) on ebay and installed latest Openwrt.

$11 - laughable price for device with 3 antennas and 5xGigE.

second-hand price.

It's too small even for second-hand.

I have cheap router with 32 Mb RAM and 4 Mb flash (TP-Link TL-WR841N v8), and I'm not sure if I should update from 15.05.1, due to raising memory and flash requirements: https://openwrt.org/supported_devices/432_warning. There's build for my router, with 3,474K sysupgrade image, so it's probably compatible.

15.05.1 is very stable, but I'm not sure about vulnerabilities it has, such as recent wifi vulnerabilities.

I'm also on 15.05, and I haven't had to touch my router for the few years I've had it since I installed 15.05.

I don't know if there's any reason to even bother upgrading. Is it faster or more secure now? Better admin UI?

Hi neilsimp1 You should defo update if you have 8 mb or more flash There has bin changes to all the things you menciond.

With 4MB don’t expect any persistence between reboots.

Passwords, packages, etc: all gone.

Definitely not recommended unless you pre-tailor your setup using imagebuilder. (Reference: latest OpenWRT on similarly capable device, D-Link DIR615.)

It's fine but barebone. Not much room for packages either. Configs are persistent though. Make sure to use "tiny" build.

FYI, I had the same model on 18.06.1 and just updated to 18.06.2. It's fine so far.

I was recently able to get the ~latest OpenWrt to run on my first computer, a P3 450, with minimal fuss.

It doesn't hurt that the P2 is arguably the first "modern" x86 CPU. Linux distros usually support P2 and above for x86.

Are there any routers supported by OpenWrt that can handle 1Gbps WAN to LAN? My current router only pulls 150Mbps and I want to keep OpenWrt due to the amount of custom network configuration that has been done.

EdgeRouter gets pretty close running OpenWrt. And hits your mark if you keep the stock firmware. No wifi though. https://an.undulating.space/post/180927-er_alternate_firmwar...

Maybe the Turris Omnia if you need WiFi and aren't worried about cost: https://omnia.turris.cz/en/

The NetGear R7800 would be somewhere between the two in cost, and reportedly does GB for wired, somewhat less over WiFi. Pretty easy to find used ones for $100USD too.

Looks like EdgeRouter X fits my requirements and is pretty cheap (50Eur). Thank you!

WRT3200acm Or build a x86 box.

What custom config ? If you need sqm with gigabit, x86 would be a safe bet. If you want just raw throughput without additional processing, others will do that fine.

Check Netgear devices.

Try looking at the fast path module.[0] Your router might have some kind of Qualcomm NAT accelerator chip[1] that isn't natively supported/distributed by OpenWRT.[2] You'll have to compile your own build of OpenWRT, so it might be a bit difficult to get going. I haven't needed to do it, because my WAN connection is only 50 Mbps.

[0] https://github.com/gwlim/openwrt-sfe-flowoffload

[1] https://forum.openwrt.org/t/qualcomm-fast-path-for-lede/4582

[2] like mine https://openwrt.org/toh/wd/n750

Openwrt was how I discovered Linux. I was just blown away by how powerful yet simple it is. I'm currently using a "real" server instead of a overpriced and slow consumer router.

There are security fixes here... is there any perspective given on how critical these are? I'm curious about the urgency of upgrading existing firewalls with the new release.

This doesn't include all the additional packages available through opkg but should mostly answer your question.

https://git.openwrt.org/?p=openwrt%2Fopenwrt.git&a=search&h=...

I use DD-WRT. How does OpenWRT compare to it?

It's still being updated for one.

For another, there are specific KRACK mitigations. Remember that little bug? [0]

[0] https://www.krackattacks.com/

OpenWRT is more "linux like". It can feel like a full blown linux system. Sure, it does have a web interface, but if you're used to doing stuff by ssh, OpenWRT is great: nice text configuration files, organized root tree and pretty much any package you get on any desktop distro, if you have the necessary space on the device...

I even run it in some KVM environments for intra-VM routing and firewall because it's lightweight.

OpenWrt has packages you can install. I use Adblock BanIP HTTPS DNS Proxy SQM GIT for downloading scripts for testing bufferbloat and line speed. https://github.com/richb-hanover/OpenWrtScripts

DD-WRT comes with GUI built-in.

OpenWRT comes with command line interfaces and you need to be experienced on that.

OpenWrt comes with a gui to. It's called LUCI.

Stable releases come with the web gui preinstalled. On nightly builds it's not included, but just install the luci web gui using the opkg package manager.

I still don’t know any good reasonably priced routers which supports Openwrt.

You can buy cheapo routers on Ali Express that have OpenWrt pre-installed...

There is hundreds: https://openwrt.org/toh/views/toh_available_864

And sub-$20 routers have been well supported for years (e.g. TP-Link TL-WR841)

Out of "hundreds" I see 5-7 that look like decent home wireless routers at first glance (4+ gigabit ports, available new, b/g/n/ac, no unsupported hardware when running OpenWRT, <$150).

Based on that the original statement "I still don’t know any good reasonably priced routers which supports Openwrt." is very understandable. A lot of rows != an easy list of good routers.

Xiaomi Mi WiFi is the best cheap with OpenWRT support

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Xiaomi-WIFI-Router-3-ROM-128...

This does not appear to be officially supported. On top of that, it appears to require one to use Xiaomi mobile software and accounts to set up the router initially prior to any flashing.

It's there, 3G (g as gen, not 3G mobile)

The "3G" model is not the model you linked. The 3G model requires you to flash proprietary firmware and then associate the router with a Xiaomi account using mobile apps for God only knows what convoluted reason. I would not trust this router even with OpenWRT running given the amount of blobs it requires and the hoops Xiaomi makes you jump through in installing an aftermarket OS.

Oops yes wrong link, this is the good https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/9UbBYxq

Well I use it with OpenWRT and it's perfect, no regrets especially for that price

Is this a joke? The WAN and LAN ports (all 2 of them) are 100 megabit.

Oops wrong link, I have that and it has 1 gig ports

https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/9UbBYxq

The TP-Link Archer C7 has been meeting all of those criteria for years and is still readily available for under $70.

Hardware encryption is on the C7 is not supported. If you have fast internet you're capped at 500mbps due to this issue: https://forum.archive.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?id=53703

I don't see anything on that page about encryption. Are you talking about something to do with VPNs or with WiFi encryption?

The original post, from 2014, states

> I tried using both open (no auth) and WPA/WPA2

meaning even without encryption, the TCP performance with OpenWRT was worse than the original firmware.

I should have been clearer. I was talking about two distinct issues:

* lack of hardware encryption support

* poor network performance (about 50% slower than with original firmware) - the issue I linked to

> lack of hardware encryption support

I don't think that the Archer C7 hardware (or most consumer router hardware) supports any kind of encryption acceleration aside from what's built in to the WiFi radios. If you want a hardware accelerated VPN, you need to either get one of the Cavium-based Ubiquiti routers or something with a relatively high-end processor implementing AES instructions.

The lower routing performance has largely been solved in 18.06 with software flow offloading.

hard to parse this statement, since the software itself is doing the lion share of making the router "good" (unless you mean wireless g/n support or something?)

i've used this project to put new life into a Buffalo router that's probably 10 years old and runs way cooler and more performant than the original firmware. same with an ASUS router that's probably 6 or 7 years old.

Hardware is quite important; wireless standards keep evolving, some people care about how many ethernet ports they have, and system details (CPU, RAM, flash memory) determine performance and features (you lose a lot trying to fit your system in 32MB of flash).

Surely you mean you lose a lot trying to fit your system in 4MiB of flash, seeing as the stock images will flash to any 8MiB device with plenty of space left for configuration and the odd extra package or seven.

My grandmother has a SiteCom WLR-4000 (aka SiteCom WL-351, aka EnGenius ESR9850) and that has a 4MiB flash chip; building OpenWRT for it is a pain, but I can still get a flashable image that does everything I need it to do, including the stock web interface (LuCI), with 100k left for persistent configuration data.

It even has WireGuard (kmod-wireguard, luci-app-wireguard, luci-proto-wireguard) on it for a bridge to my router at my home.

When it breaks, or if I ever upgrade my WNDR3800, I'll give that to her. But for the time being it's still perfectly serviceable.

It depends upon your definitions of "good" and "router". If you are ok with <300 Mbps speeds, the Raspberry Pi 3B+ makes a surprisingly good router with openwrt. I suspect a lot of similar devices also work at Gbps speeds for very reasonable prices.

If you also need an access point, the cost does start to increase a little, but it still isn't bad at all, IMO.

The table of hardware is a good start.

https://openwrt.org/toh/start

I've converted some devices in the past, the latest one being a small TL-MR3020 box which now connects my Ethernet printer to my home AP.

Though I like openwrt, the web interface could be improved (meaning: making it more clear and simpler) because the above task, although trivial, required a lot more time than it should have.

Openwrt also doesn't forgive errors: on another little router I mistakenly deleted or disabled the wrong interface, and now that box is unreachable from anywhere until I'll take the time to open it and connect a serial port to reconfigure it from a terminal. But that's more of a feature :)

Any reason I should pick this over Opnsense / something FreeBSD based?

OpenWRT is designed home routers with cheap/slow CPU’s, a few MB of memory, and small ROM’s. If you have better equipment available to use, then sure, anything else would likely be an improvement.

Can anyone recommend a good SoC to start playing with OpenWRT development?

pcengines apu2 should be good for hacking. Very open platform (it runs coreboot). Not very cheap though.

For development or just playing around, you can run it in a virtual machine.

Do you know if I can reliably use a compatible usb WiFi adapter with a vm?

It is hard to fully generalize that question, since I'm sure it varies a little bit depending on the virtualization software and how well it passes through USB devices. I don't see why it wouldn't work, though.

AR9331 is well supported and dirt cheap.

Router like TP-Link WR-741 is good one.

I found routers on local classifieds for $5.

Upgraded all my devices at home, worked flawlessly.

Any news about 19.01?

It hasn't been branched yet. More likely a 19.0x in the middle of the year.

Linksys starting signing their updates.

I tried updating my EA6350, but gave up (couldn't figure out TFTP). Which was Linksys's plan all along.

I updated my WRT3200acm and all is fine. New wifi drivers are better to. I all so flashed WD-N750 WDR3600 C7-v2 and a WRT1900ac

still running DD-WRT on an ancient Linksys WRT54GL

You should really update mate. The 54gl is verry slow now and can not run the latest OpenWrt. It's not safe to have a wrt54gl in the wild. If you would like to chek out all the security bugs that have bin fixt just look at the change logs for the OpenWrt releases.

Still using WRT54GL, but revert it to stock firmware.

Seems that new WRT like firmwares require more ram than built 16MB.

use the mini build

ftp://ftp.dd-wrt.com/betas/2019/01-29-2019-r38507/broadcom/ dd-wrt.v24_mini_wrt54g

My god! You mite as well leve your devices out in the street, with know passwords on them and ask members of the public to take what files thay would like! "Roll up Roll up! Here's all my data, fore you good people. come come, get what you want! come it'sa free for all!"

Device is connected to ADSL provider in small village and it's only one AP on 500m radius.

I used this for my grandma's wireless router. Both the hardware and OS are rock-solid, and 54mbps is plenty.

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