OpenWrt 18.06.4

So yes, definitely worth having the option of alternative firmware.

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.

The interface is such an improvement over the built-in. It's really well-made.

Tried it out in Links text-only browser, just because, and it works fine there as well. They did a fantastic job with progressive enhancement IMO. Good to hear it's working well with screen readers.

The built-in router interface just flat out refused to even show a login form w/o JS, and disabled right clicking, which was really annoying, because I was trying to get our PPPoE details from a pre-filled password input.

It was too difficult for me to capture the pw with a script from the console, as the password input was inside another iframe. Ended up using Wireshark!

Many like the R7800. I do not.

The XiaoMi 3G is also a good option. The driver is open source and actively developed. (The USB3 port can cause interference in 2.4Ghz though).

Anything based on ipq806x and ipq4xxx should have excellent WiFi performance. (Including the R7800)

[1] https://www.ui.com/products/#

https://www.turris.cz/en/omnia/

edit: Recompilation should not be necessary. opkg remove && opkg update && opkg install should do it.

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.

There are other firmwares for plastic, and it used to be that some of them (like DD-WRT and Tomato) would just work better than OpenWrt on a small number of devices. Today, I suspect some of them still have merits that arguably make it worth not just doing OpenWrt, but I'll defer to someone more familiar with them to discuss those merits.

If you want to be better respected on /r/homelab, or not use a SoC, then get PC hardware (or a turnkey appliance) and pfSense or OPNsense. You might end up getting separate plastic WiFi APs (perhaps running OpenWrt), and doing only Ethernet on the router box itself (pfSense suggests this).

You can also make your own router/firewall/appliance, by just configuring a PC GNU/Linux distro manually. Extra gigabit NICs come on PCIe cards.

As far as I am concerned, the OpenWRT community is the only one that has it's shit together.

https://www.gl-inet.com/products/gl-ar750/

Edit: it is also dual-band, unlike the GL-iNet 6416 or other smaller units from same vendor.

Shut off its wifi radios a few years ago but it still routes and runs dynamic dns just fine.

Are you using any extra OpenWRT functionality?

I have openwrt on all my 3 Archer C7s.

I much prefer it to dd-wrt.

One thing to know is that the overall documentation situation is "mixed", and if you Google for how to do something with OpenWrt, you'll often find very old notes someone wrote about how to do something with the command line and editing files. (I know Linux pretty well, have used OpenWrt for years including some complex setups, and occasionally I have trouble finding documentation of simple things like, e.g., what partitions/mounts are currently volatile, for example, and distro-specifics of where you're supposed to edit packet filtering rules.) There's not enough correcting of that scattered documentation, such as to say that almost everyone just uses the Web admin interface now. When in doubt, just look at what the Web admin UI currently does, and try to use that.

The only reason I use the CLI is because I know how to and it’s quicker to backup the configuration (ssh root@<ip> uci export > backup) and restore it (uci restore < backup) but this can also be done through the GUI.

The GUI is a nice combination of ease of use and advanced features. You can configure the basics easily, but the advanced stuff is also there if you need it (and if not just keep the defaults which are sane).

See other people's comments on running Openwrt on the C7, seems to have issues with 5ghz WiFi?

There's also a security aspect to it. Stock firmware typically uses outdated and unsupported kernels.

May be the updated drivers or the removed junk, but WiFi, NAT and USB speeds are better on all the routers I had (my first step - install Openwrt, DD-wrt or Tomato). And no latency spikes.

Lots of configuration options, extra capabilities via packages, and it can run for months without losing speed, losing the connection, becoming non-responsive or rebooting.

Regular updates.

Excellent documentation.

https://openwrt.org/docs/start

And a whole set of packed applications and tools. There are about 6,000 packages in total, ranging from device-specific and kernel support to advanced applications such as media servers. Link below is just the larger apps.

https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/services/start

Re-romming my DSL modem (500 Mhz dual-core CPU, 64 MB RAM, 8 MB Flash), as advantages over stock vendor firmware, I get:

- SSH access, rather than periodically-enabled telnet

- adblock

- remote logging capabilities.

- performance and activity monitoring.

- consistent interface with my router (also running OpenWRT).

- Full-featured shell tools rathee than barebones Busybox versions, if I like.

- Remote filesystems / additional storage.

Depending on your device(s) and capabilities, your modem, router, or other hardware can serve as a home server: NAS, UuuNextCloud, Webserver, VOIP services, media server, PXEBoot (useful for testing images/deployments), guest network(s), VPN, proxy servers, email, mesh networks, messaging, captive portals, and far more.

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.

Installation is just as easy, and there's an integrated safe mode (which saved my ass, fiddling with uboot, trying to overclock).