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Comment by shmerl | Hacker News Reader

Wipe out Asus firmware and install something like DD-WRT to never have such problems again.

If you plan on using third party firmware you should look at compatibility with OpenWRT BEFORE buying the device. Router manufacturers are unwilling and unable to provide a future-proof software.

Latest proof of that in my case was with a new Wi-Fi 6 router Netgear WAX206. After indeterminate time clients would just stop receiving packets and would require reconnecting. WAX206 latest factory firmware is based on OpenWRT from 2016 (Netgear still refuses to open source parts of it). After flashing current OpenWRT the connection is rock solid.

It isn't that easy. Both ddwrt and openwrt are very optimistic about calling something 'working'. Fully working might mean: Only slow wifi and 100 mb ethernet, No use of most hardware acceleration.

These projects are great, but against the background of 100s of new crappy devices every year, nothing can ever be decently finished. Hardware is simply not sold anymore before any device fully matures, and vendors are very stingy with firmware.

OpenWRT preferably. DD-WRT is junk.

Brainslayer is so obsessively paranoid about the idea someone might "steal" and "sell" DD-WRT devices that he obfuscates building the firmware as much as possible.

The devices also are just the stock garbage vendor GPL tarball with DD-WRT's UI on top. So you'll still be stuck with stuff like an ancient kernel full of bugs

Most of the time it's because of the drivers: not open source, not compatible with newer kernel, and not updated by the manufacturer.

OpenWRT solves this by refusing to incorporate devices that require binary blobs (read: Broadcom)

This significantly shrinks the number of devices they support, but the devices that are supported have their lifespans increased significantly

Thanks, I wondered why my router kernel went from 4.xx to 6.1 after flashing OpenWRT, especially when MediaTek is notorious for poor kernel support. This actually makes me respect OpenWRT even more.

MediaTek is pretty decent in terms of open source support for their WiFi chips and SoCs, to the point of continuously supporting a long time OpenWRT developer (Felix Fietkau) to work on their OpenWRT device drivers. This is an effort that is independent of their closed source drivers for the same devices.

Doesn't mean everything MTK does shines under the sun, but in Linux WiFi, they are probably the most open and well supported in the modern age.

Are you sure you are using an official OpenWrt image? Stable is still 5.10 and Snapshot (master branch) is 5.15.

6.x kernel is not expected to land anytime soon (late this year or early next year maybe?)

If you have a 6.x kernel, this is probably a fork of OpenWrt.

Brainslayer builds kernels for DD-WRT broadcom devices (I don't know about other SoC manufacturers). My AC68U running DD-WRT is using the 4.4 kernel. Stock firmware is using 2.6 kernel. The current big issue with DD-WRT broadcom devices is that Brainslayer has not got access to build Kernels for the newer SDKs that support AX routers. A quick glance suggests AX support is lacking on other SoC manufacturers that DD-WRT support. I plan on moving to OpenWRT compatible hardware for my next device.

Unfortunately it's becoming increasingly expensive to find routers for casual home usage that allow for alternative supported firmwares. A decade ago slapping tomato on something cheap would do the trick, but now with high speed internet and wifi 6 there aren't many devices having that flexibility within entry-level price ranges (at least from what I've seen in Europe and Canada).

[0] would seem to suggest there are 45 options for things with WiFi 6 that you can install OpenWRT on. 16 of them are supported in an actual release and don't require running a snapshot.

Not amazing, to be sure, and I don't know what those devices cost, but I think the situation is less dire than your post would suggest.

[0] https://openwrt.org/toh/views/toh_available_16128_ax-wifi

None of them are things your ISP will ship you free, nor things you'll find on eBay for $20.

(Despite routers capable of gigabit speeds being commonly both free and available on eBay for pennies)

With the price of high end routers rising the last time I needed one (that could get near to 1gbit) I went with a mini board that was well supported by OpenWRT. Some of these can also support WiFi via laptop style PCIe add-in cards.

https://openwrt.org/toh/views/toh_single-board-computers

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