I did find this (https://openwrt.org/toh/views/toh_available_16128) but that's a lot of choices to wade through.
I recommend buying a miniPC that has at least 2 network ports and install OpenWRT on there. You can do it on ARM-based PCs or even x86_64 based PCs.
Then connect this miniPC to a cheap 8-port switch, and get some WiFi APs and connect those also to the switch.
This way you will get a much more powerful and reliable "router" that can't ever "brick". Better WiFi quality with good Prosumer / small business APs, and the ability to upgrade your WiFi independently of your router as needed.
Something like this for example:
https://liliputing.com/linkstar-h68k-is-a-pocket-sized-route...
Alas good wifi cards are extremely hard to procure and to fit to boxes. You can maybe get someone to sell you a $200+ AP-class wifi6 board.
Then you need some way to actually put it in a computer. Many are oversized mPCIe. We are starting to see some m.2 but it's rare & again they're likely to be oversized. Some have crazy power requirements, like having teo lugs to provide 5V on.
This is by far the worst served aspect of personal computing & it's such a shame. I with the adding card market existed. And many how great it would be if USB chipsets could be reliable AP. Maybe they have gotten better, but after years of religiously buying everything Alfa made & trying to see how good an AP it'd be before falling over, it feels like a relatively simple ask that would make the world of difference (lots of modest sized APs everywhere) is so unlikely to happen. For no good reason that I can tell.
So now I run as router/everything x86 with a bunch of 10g/sfp ports and a couple of r7800 flashed with openwrt as purely AP
It's also just so so striking to me that it's been most of a decade with Compex as the only company making add-on cards. There are some clones (Wallystech), but there's just like no market here. Qualcomm clearly Does Not Give A Fuck about selling chips to anyone else. No one else cares about add-on cards. The whole access-point market perpetuates on the vastest wave of apathy & disregard.
> With absurd constraints that make them hard to use in a normal system (weird shape, weird power needs).
hahaha. i had one AP built with pcie > minipcie attached to custom bracket to hold extra large card. and 5v stolen from sata port.
when it came time to rebuild it, i just gave up and went the route i described above.
Let's at least probe a little bit here. Is this a "fact" because of good inherent reasons? Or is this a "fact" because of circumstance?
In general, show your thinking. Why do you feel this way? Let's have something to discuss, to see where we might meet or where we can reasonably disagree.
https://store.ui.com/collections/unifi-network-wireless
You just put them in a good location and run a wire to your switch.
Or you can get APs that support a mesh configuration and set them up wherever with 1 connected to your switch.
Which you rarely can escape outside of business-contracts, regardless of concepts like 'router-freedom'.
In very rare circumstances you'll get to know the exact specifics of the low-level technicals before that shit is installed, and can plug in you own stuff without excess gear.
https://liliputing.com/linkstar-h68k-is-a-pocket-sized-route...
> At the heart of the little computer is Rockchip’s quad-core ARM Cortex-A55 processor with ARM Mali-G52 2EE graphics
How is the linux support for this ?
But it's typically really simple to set up. You just plug 1 or more APs into your switch and setup their WiFi info like name/password and signal formats and off you go.
Like these: https://store.ui.com/collections/unifi-network-wireless
I recommend looking at the supported devices list, since some models have Chinese v2 models that are indistinguishable, but unsupported.
https://www.asuswrt-merlin.net/
https://github.com/RMerl/asuswrt-merlin.ng/wiki/Supported-De...
Ah, hardware vendors. Never change.
> Ah, hardware vendors. Never change.
Hardware vendors, please never change; it makes our lives harder when you do;)
If you're looking to route the lower end of things, you're likely to be fine with an SBC like the above. If you're looking for more, then something with Hardware offload is worth looking out for. With OpenWRT, you're likely to be looking at either a fairly meaty X86 for gigabit, or an off-the-shelf for which it supports HW offload.
The solution's not going to be found in the firmware, is it?
Enabling SQM [1] would probably mitigate the issue further, at the cost of requiring more processing power.
[1] https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/network/traffic-shaping/...
It's a Qotom Q750G5. Similar models can be purchased from Protectli if you do not want IME or if you want coreboot.
Anyway, it is a fantastic little device which sips power and I'm very happy with it.
Edit: one last note -- I use this for routing only. I did not add the wlan module since I have dedicated access points installed in some of my closets.
The more you pay the more bandwidth they can handle, depends on how / where / why of the implementation.
Using this method, I bought 3 wireless routers 2.5-3 years ago for a total of about 50 CAD. They have been running as dumb wireless APs (https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/network/wifi/dumbap) ever since, to great effect.
But the Flint model (802.11ax) is using Qualcomm's hacked up OpenWRT: https://forum.openwrt.org/t/gl-inet-gl-ax1800-flint-users-di... Sounds like it'll be a while.
Even if you don't, you can access the traditional OpenWrt web interface (Luci) on the vendor's firmware, alongside their (pretty nice) simplified web interface.
They come with OpenWrt on them, plus the vendor's web interface. You can flash regular OpenWrt which is the first thing I do.
Make sure any model you look at is supported on the ToH. It takes a while for brand new models to appear in stable owrt releases.
There seems to be some experimental openwrt build for GL.iNet Flint (GL-AX1800), but it still has some issues with fans: https://forum.openwrt.org/t/gl-inet-ax1800-new-router-openwr...