Comment on OpenWRT router
jrgd@lemmy.zip 3 days ago
Looking up the router, it was allegedly produced in 2024, according to the OpenWRT wiki. Barring any outliers, OpenWRT generally only sunsets hardware when a new version has higher hardware requirements than is provided by a device. The supported devices page lists out the hard requirements as well as recommendations. Currently 8 MiB flash storage is the minimum, with 16+ MiB recommended (for additional functions, user addons, etc.). 64 MiB is the minimum RAM target, with 128+ MiB recommended. According to the router’s wiki page, your chosen router exceeds both recommended requirements. Overall, the router should be suitable for a good while not barring any severe hardware or bootloader-level exploitable vulnerabilities are discovered with the device.
Depending on what you want to do with the router, getting something with more RAM and a stronger CPU could be beneficial for various tasks (e.g. adblock-fast, cake sqm, etc.). Definitely do research on what you want your router to do though before choosing to go with higher specs or not.
gabmus@retrolemmy.com 3 days ago
FWIW I bought an N100 mini pc with 2 nics for ~100eur and use it as an openwrt router. It’s so easy and simple IDK why more people don’t recommend it.
jrgd@lemmy.zip 3 days ago
I mean, the mini PCs don’t come with a managed switch, and often without good wireless connectivity that most home routers will come equipped with. So in total with Wi-Fi APs and a decent switch, definitely more than €100 in total.
Also unrelated, but if you’re running a x86 system with gigabytes of RAM, why not run Opnsense at that point?
gabmus@retrolemmy.com 3 days ago
As for opensense, I just like openwrt better. Also yeah sure I bought a dumb switch and a standalone access point (some zyxel also running openwrt) for an extra ~120eur total but that’s a whole setup and it works quite well.
Vorpal@programming.dev 3 days ago
While that works, it will use more electricity than an all-in-one ARM based router. Depending on prices and renewable/fossil mixture where you live, this may or may not be a concern.
Grass@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
How is x86 openwrt? I’ve been on opnsense but my APs are openwrt and maybe I’m remembering wrong after a long time of not touching the management page but I could have sworn it used to detail what rate cables connect at and it doesn’t seem to any more without unrememberable shell commands, and at some point my lan domains stopped working, among other minor annoyances I could also swear are new since my absence.
gabmus@retrolemmy.com 2 days ago
Pretty much the same as any other incarnation of openwrt, just without a lot of the compatibility headaches and weird installation processes that you typically have with other architectures. It’s just install and forget pretty much.
As for the link speed, you can just
cat /sys/class/net/eth*/speedas with any other linux system. Not sure how your configurations stopped working or broke, maybe your storage got corrupted or something? Hard to tell, but I doubt openwrt caused it on its own, it sounds new to me.