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Comment by mcsniff | Hacker News Reader

Coming in at under $100 is a lofty goal, but if they make the hardware, I'll buy one. The Turris Omnia was close.

I've been using (and previously contributing) to OpenWrt for almost 10 years, it's an excellent project and deserves some spotlight, I really hope this gains some traction.

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If they're selling it at cost, ~$100 is not so unrealistic. It's similar in specs to the GL-MT3000 from GL.iNet which retails for $109, albeit without some of the price-increasing niceties like NVME, redundant recovery flash, or built-in usb-to-serial converters: https://www.gl-inet.com/products/gl-mt3000/

G.iNet is wholly based upon OpenWRT. They get the benefit of the free software and can undersell because they don't need to support it. I know I'm oversimplifying, but it's at least partially true.

I'm a big fan of OpenWRT. I switched to it after running pfSense for a lot of years. Anyone can donate to the project here: https://openwrt.org/donate

Fully agree, I debated editing my comment to recommend against purchasing it. I bought the aforementioned device after hearing that GL.iNet sells their devices with very minimally modified OpenWRT and that a stock image is freely available, and only after going to set it up did I learn that they no longer publish things like their uboot and kernel trees, and that the stock openwrt image for the device was community contributed. It's very frustrating and I regret purchasing from them.

That being said, a huge portion of the consumer-oriented router brands are based on openwrt/buildroot today, so they're far from the only group guilty of benefitting from openwrt without contributing things back.

https://github.com/gl-inet/uboot-source-for_mtk

https://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/23.05.2/targets/media...

https://forum.openwrt.org/t/trouble-flashing-vanilla-openwrt...

   gee_one
   December 12, 2023, 2:36am 4

I just got one of these. It is certainly supported! I am now running my own homebrewed build of openwrt 23.05.2

I updated the gl-inet firmware to the latest 4.4.6, and then flashed vanilla openwrt 23.05.2 through the luci web interface.

I played around with the uboot flasher which takes an img file. I haven't played around enough with it yet to unpack the images to see if they are different formats or not.

It sounds like you are doing the right things. I guess check the hashes to make sure the files are intact? I haven't tested other versions or snapshots.

   cameroncc
   December 12, 2023, 4:07am 5

Did you just use the sysupgrade image from the firmware selector? How long did it take to fully flash?

   gee_one
   December 12, 2023, 5:30am 6

Yes, for the vanilla firmware, I used the sysupgrade version from the firmware selector, 23.05.2.

I don't remember how long it took, but it wasn't very long. I think about 5 mins or less. I had a serial console as well, so it was easy to see that some activity was going on.

   cameroncc
   December 15, 2023, 4:13am 11

Well, I just reflashed the GL.iNet image from uboot and then flashed the OpenWrt sysupgrade image from luci again just like before so I could try to ssh and read dmesg before messing with UART and it just... worked... no idea why

I'm not sure what to make of your comment, what is this in reference to? The last commit on the uboot tree you've posted was 4 years ago...

I realize that 23.05 is supported on the device, but my point is that it was entirely done by individual contributors from outside of GL.iNet, not contributed by the company itself. It sucks because GL.iNet sort of built a reputation off of being the openwrt router brand, and used to be in relatively good standing, but have shifted their approach since. Now they benefit off the reputation they built previously, because of people like me who assume they're still doing that before making purchases.

"I realise the 23.05 is supported on the device, but my point is that it was entirely done by individual contributers from outside of GL.inet, not contributed by the company itself."

Not sure I understand why this would not be exactly what one would want. (Namely, people outside the company being able to get the hardware to work with an open source OS.^1) Who wants to be stuck with a proprietary vendor OS on a router, something like Ubiquiti (a company recommended countless times on HN), where the only way to get the full features is to use their OS instead of choice of Linux/BSD installed by the buyer.

AFAICT, GL.inet software is generally no better than OpenWRT or other open source projects. It's probably terrible. Why would anyone expect otherwise. Good reason to compile OpenWRT for oneself.

The GL.inet software is probably getting worse. FWIW, one can still buy the older models. The pre-installed bootloader can be replaced. For newer models, might have to contact GL.inet. It's not clear if you are suggesting one cannot get the source to the bootloader for the router you bought, i.e., you asked GL.inet and they said no or did not respond. If that's the case, then I am interested to know.

AFAIK, people bought the older models for the hardware, e.g., GB ethernet, small form factor, and being supported by OpenWRT. GL.inet is a hardware company that lets the buyer replace the pre-installed OS with their own version; this is anticipated. That is more than many companies selling similar products.

There may be better travel router hardware available today. But being known to work with OpenWRT is an important factor for some buyers. For _some_ GL.inet models, the hardware is known to work with OpenWRT and u-boot compiled and installed by the buyer. AFAICT, the models with the Mediatek 7981 SoC are not a problem. If this is wrong, please do tell.

1. For example,

https://forum.openwrt.org/t/how-do-gl-inet-devices-become-su...

    daniel March 7, 2023, 5:38pm 33
    fakemanhk:

    while their MT2500/MT3000 using Mediatek chipset I might go for it since it has higher chance to get vanilla OpenWrt on it.

MT2500 and MT3000 will definitely get vanilla OpenWrt on them. I'm working on this. gl.inet has provided hardware and all necessary documentation (schematics, ...) to do this. Would of course be nicer if they'd even do that themselves, but that's too much to ask, I guess. It's quite different case from the SiFlower SoC where there isn't even any sourcecode for most drivers. For MT7981 everything relevant is available in sourcecode, just needed some work to go to upstream Linux and will land in OpenWrt very soon.

> so they're far from the only group guilty of benefitting from openwrt without contributing

This is certainly true. SoC vendors often base their SDK on a fixed version of OpenWrt and then add proprietary patches on top. Then sell the SoC + SDK to a device vendor that adds additional proprietary patches and sells the device.

The issue with this is that the only way to fix security issues is to back-port them to the exact kernel version the SoC used as a base, and after a year or two, they completely drop support and you're left with a device that has known security vulnerabilities you can do nothing about.

How many old routers are still in use that are used as part of a botnet?

They are not running stock openwrt and openwrt devs refer to their firmwares as "frankenwrt".

A few times a year I go looking for projects to support. It's tricky because I don't want to give money to a project that has tens of thousands of dollars in their account—I'd rather give to some smaller projects or indie devs!

See for example the audited financials of projects hosted by the Software in the Public Interest (SPI), where many do have tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars already https://www.spi-inc.org/treasurer/reports/202311/#index4h3

I would totally buy this device if they make it happen. My current router is about four years old and runs OpenWRT.

> G.iNet is wholly based upon OpenWRT. They get the benefit of the free software and can undersell because they don't need to support it. I know I'm oversimplifying, but it's at least partially true.

Are they complying with the license terms? I guess I don't understand why it would be considered a negative for them to build a product based on OpenWRT.

It's not a big negative from the consumer point of view. I've purchased some (3) and supported other (6) Gl.iNet products and they've been okay. Several times I have run into issues where the routers have effectively bricked the ability to update the firmware image, while continuing to operate with the outdated and insecure image still running. I've successfully un-bricked a few of them, but that can be a tricky task and takes a while.

They do seem to be complying with the license terms, and the free portions of the software can be downloaded from the Gl.iNet website.

Most of the negatives have been covered in other comments here.

As a small contributor to OpenWrt, I don't like the whole: release one version of their proprietary fork of OpenWrt and then just do security fixes on top of that.

If they really want to focus on hardware and base everything on top of OpenWrt, it would be easier for them to upstream as much as possible and let the community handle updates. Even donating would be less expensive. It would be somewhat of a win-win situation IMO.

> I'm a big fan of OpenWRT. I switched to it after running pfSense for a lot of years. Anyone can donate to the project here: https://openwrt.org/donate

Would you care to go into why you chose it over pf/Opn Sense? Considering that you have to reinstall so it's not automatic, what makes it enough better to make the change worth your while?

I'm currently running OpnSense for my personal routing and firewalling needs, and considered OpenWRT a few weeks ago (for linux driver support, but that's another story). In the end, I changed my nic and kept opnsense.

Sure thing. I don't want to make any unfounded accusations, but I observed some unstable behavior on my pfSense installations. It wasn't clear if it had been hacked, or if it was just buggy, but it seemed more like a hack to me. Because it's installed as a proprietary blob from a "trusted" source, I couldn't do much troubleshooting. This was shortly after the opnSense mockery, which reduced my confidence in the professionalism of Netgate. https://www.reddit.com/r/homelab/comments/ssk8zj/til_in_2017...

Also, while exploring other options, I found that OpenWRT provided much higher bandwidth on the same processor/memory footprint. I was able to reduce the VM CPU and memory allocations after switching.

Finally, there were a number of features I needed that pfSense just did not support. One was IGMP snooping, another was IPv6 using a provider tunnel.

I have tried two G.iNet devices. One completely stopped turning on, and the other the specs were so low it could barely keep up.

I've been using OpenWRT forever (WRT54G era) and only buy devices that can run OpenWRT. GL.iNet is my go-to out-of-the-box OpenWRT recommendation for others looking for a router. Their UI is a lot easier to use than LuCI for most things. I had a RPi-based Wireguard VPN setup to a family member's house, but I switched it out with a GL.iNet because their UI for managing Wireguard devices is so much easier. Especially since I can access it using their Goodcloud management portal from anywhere.

I hope OpenWRT pulls off having their own device. That would definitely be an upgrade from GL.iNet. But compared to getting a completely non-open firmware like every other GL.iNet competitor, even their versions of OpenWRT are a major step up.

There are a few of their devices that have upstream support in OpenWRT. But it is like buying any other device for running stock OpenWRT in that regard - you have to do your homework to make sure you get something compatible.

I still have OpenWRT running on a RPi4 'router' and 3 TP-Link routers as APs on my network. But still wish I could get GL.iNet's Wireguard management in Luci...

Call me crazy but I recall the Turris Omnia was 350 € last time I looked (~3 years ago). It could also take a fiber line as input, right?

Sounds about correct! I have one that I bought in 2018 but I remember it being more like 450+ € at the time.

I have had a fiber line connected during the whole time and it has served me well (I haven't done much customizing on it though, I have to admit. It's just the router for my home network).

Why would $100 be difficult? Router hardware is basically ancient arm cpus with five gigabit ethernet ports and wifi.

Because everything other than the ancient arm CPUs and ethernet ports requires expertise and capital.

First, that doesn't make sense when there are full modern system boards that sell for a fraction of that individually.

Second, why would you need something different that what routers are already doing? They are just trying to sell their own openWRT routers, the hardware has existed for a decade at or below $100, why would it be difficult for them to meet that?

They aren’t just trying to sell a router, they are trying to make available a fully open router without blobs right from boot, that is unbrickable, and selling it essentially at cost

Where are the numbers here? How does what you are saying connect to what is being talked about in a concrete way? You are talking about software and saying it has to cost $100 or more while there are $30 routers on amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B082HH24YY/

This is more or less discussed in the link. They started looking at BananaPi products as a starting point, but have some requirements that existing boards don't fulfill. One in particular that probably precludes all of the $30 boards you're talking is:

"that this router isabeautiful (sic) example of excellent GPL/LGPL compliance"

These routers are crap. Anyone who cares a tiny bit about their wireless connectivity won't buy this. And I don't think OpenWRT wants to associate their name with "low-quality" routers.

What you are saying here is speculation. Most router's shortcoming is software. I've used cheap netgear routers with openwrt and they work incredibly well.

If you get up to mass-scale production quantities, $100 might be feasible. I imagine small-scale production with little up-front capital and no guaranteed market might be lot more challenging. It's not software, you're going to need large orders to get good prices.

I think about Meego/Jolla phone and tablet, Ubuntu Phone, Kobol Helios and tons of other projects that have either failed or are struggling due to market size and ecosystem.

I've been running a Turris Omnia for the last few years, which I've been fairly happy with. Network performance is about average and the platform as a whole is certainly due for an update, but stability has been great, it receives regular upgrades, and I'm happy to pay more for a project that has an open mindset. Not sure many feel the same way about commodity network hardware though.

Even brand new routers, with all their markup, shipping included, that can already run openwrt, can be $64

https://www.amazon.com/NETGEAR-AC1750-Smart-Router-Gigabit/d... https://openwrt.org/toh/netgear/r6350

Here is a new router for $30 with 5 gigabit ports and usb 3.0 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B082HH24YY/

Anything with radio involves a ton of expensive certification work.

With something like a rpi that sells millions of units, that can be spread over way more units than something like this that (optimistically) gets sold to a few thousand nerds and that's it.

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