Support for the ZyXEL GS1900-24HPv2 has been merged today:
Work on rtl839x and the non-PoE ZyXEL GS1900-48 is ongoing and seems to be progressing nicely:
The GS1900-48HP is likely based on this device and probably can be supported relatively easily as well.
Likewise the aforementioned PR paves the way for rtl9300 with 10 GBit/s support in the future as well.
Adding support for the rtl838x/ rtl839x based hardware revisions of the D-Link DGS-1210 model line with PoE features should be rather straight forward as well.
Aliexpress have a lot of Chinese switches at a good price, but obviously the lack of reputable and constantly maintained firmware is an issue. I have after a 24 port switch with 10g uplinks too. It doesn't look like openwrt officially supports any of the Chinese brands. Anyone knows of a Chinese brand unofficially supported - based on ARM Cortex A9
e.g. http://www.poeplus.com/shop/l3-10g-24-ports-poe-switch-101001000mbps-with-4-sfp-fiber-ports/
another question if i may, i see from that generic realtek list the netgear gs108tv3 and gs110tppv1 are both supported. (i have both). daft question, but what advantage to change from the netgear firmware to openwrt? i am using openwrt on my wireless access points, but specifically in the context of these larger switches
I would say cloud control and management would be two benefits of using OpenWRT vs the stock firmware that came with these switches. Usually the stock firmware runs really old and insecure linux kernels.
Indeed, the goal would be to find one of these cheap, low cost Chinese brands, and flash openwrt on it. Perhaps you could ask the seller if its realtek based chipset?
I found this: http://www.poeplus.com/?s=S3024P-4SE for $225 which is a good deal. Our L2 smart web managed Switch is RTL based(RTL9301, PSE chip HS104PTI and HS104PBI)
I know the RTL9301 someone mentioned would be fairly easy to support, but is the PSE chip HS104PTI and HS104PBI for PoE supported in OpenWRT?
What about the 10G SFP+ cages? I saw that those weren't yet supported.
Depends on what kind of challenge you're looking for of course, but personally I'd buy whatever extra the ZyXEL GS1900-24HPv2 is if I were in the market for something like that. Supported in master, having a pre-soldered console header accessible without opening the case, manufactured with some quality control, and available from local stores. To me, each of those things are worth a lot.
I am definitely not looking for a challenge. Do most of these switches require header / console access to load the openWRT image? I was hoping to just be able to login to the default web gui, and upload a file. Are there any switches that support this method?
When you say pre-soldered console header accessible without opening the case, what do you mean by this? Like does it have a console port like you see on enterprise grade switches, or how do you access this without opening the case? I looked at the pictures, and don't see anything noticeable.
UART: 1 serial header (J41) with populated standard pin connector on
the left edge of the PCB, angled towards the side.
The casing has a rectangular cutout on the side that provides
external access to these pins.
Pinout (front to back):
+ GND
+ TX
+ RX
+ VCC